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Published on: October 5, 2017
Isolation, characterization and cross-species testing of microsatellites obtained from a sand smelt (Atherina boyeri)
Valentina Milana1, Luciana Sola, Anna R Rossi
1Department of Animal and Human Biology, University of Rome 'La Sapienza', Via Borelli 50, 00161 Rome, Italy Department of Biology, University of Padova, Via U. Bassi 58B, 35121 Padova, Italy.
Abstract:
This study reports the isolation and characterization of 11 polymorphic microsatellites from a sand smelt (Atherina boyeri) genomic library. Enrichment was performed with di-, tri- and tetranucleotide motifs following the FIASCO procedure (fast isolation by AFLP of sequences containing repeats). All loci were found to be in linkage and in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. This represents the first microsatellite isolation for the family Atherinidae and the isolated loci were accordingly tested on four additional species of the family: two recognized (A. presbyter and A. hepsetus) and two proposed ('punctata' and 'non-punctata' forms). Moreover their cross-species suitability on Menidia menidia, belonging to the same order but to the family Atherinopsidae, was also tested.

