Development, characterization, and cross-amplification of microsatellite markers in the understudied African genus...

Anthonotha macrophylla (Fabaceae) is a common tree species throughout the Guineo-Congolian forest that is sometimes confounded with other congeneric species; it is expected to be an interesting phylogeographical model to infer the history of the African dense forests. We developed 18 microsatellite markers from this species and tested their transferability in 15 congeneric species.

A genomic library was obtained using the Illumina platform, and 18 polymorphic microsatellite loci were developed. The polymorphic microsatellites displayed two to 24 alleles (average: 11.9 alleles per locus, expected heterozygosity range: 0.18-0.91, mean: 0.64) in three populations of A. macrophylla from Benin, Liberia, and Cameroon. Cross-amplification in one to nine individuals of 15 congeneric Anthonotha species (A. acuminata, A. brieyi, A. cladantha, A. crassifolia, A. ferruginea, A. fragrans, A. gilletii, A. lamprophylla, A. mouandzae, A. noldeae, A. pellegrinii, A. pynaertii, A. stipulacea, A. wijmacampensis, and A. xanderi) showed successful amplification in six to 17 loci, making most of these markers useful at the generic level.

This set of markers will be useful to study species delimitation and the genetic structure of Anthonotha species, and thus to better understand the history of tropical African rainforests.