Hybridization, characterization and transferability of SSRs in the genus Morchella

Recently, Morchella importuna, M. sextelata, M. eximia, M. exuberans, Mel-13, and Mel-21 have been successfully cultivated in China and planting areas rapidly expanded because of their economic importance. Effective molecular markers are urgently needed for accurately identifying morel cultivars. Microsatellites are widely utilized for strain authentication in many fungal groups. To our knowledge, for the first time we characterized the distribution of microsatellites (simple sequence repeats, SSRs) in the M. importuna genome with 12902 SSRs and reported the first set of SSRs developed for Morchella species. Mono-nucleotides (66.2 %) were the most frequent motifs, followed by tri- (15.4 %), di- (12.1 %), tetra- (3.7 %), penta- (1.3 %) and hexa-nucleotides (1.3 %). We tested the cross-species amplification of 180 SSRs on 24 samples from the six species and high cross-species transferability of SSRs (87.7 %) was found. Among twenty-two microsatellites selected for genetic diversity analysis on 127 samples from the six species, fifteen to twenty polymorphic loci were identified in M. importuna, M. sextelata, M. eximia, M. exuberans, Mel-13 and Mel-21. Interspecific hybridization events were detected among morel species, indicating the potential application of morel crossbreeding. Ninety-one cultivated samples were characterized as new cultivars with different genotypes, but cultivar names used for these by farmers was confusing, with misnaming, synonyms and homonyms. Our results are not only helpful for cultivar identification and morel breeding programs in China, but also provide molecular tools for genetic studies in morels.