Occurrence and inheritance of microsatellites in Pinus radiata

Microsatellites are an important class of DNA marker because of their abundance and length hypervariability. As part of a project mapping the Pinus radiata genome, we have characterized some of the microsatellites in this species. Southern blots were screened with oligonucleotide probes [(CA)10, (GA)10, (GAA)9, (CAA)8, (CAC)5, (GACA)4] to assess their abundance. CA and GA were the most abundant microsatellites, while GAA was least abundant. A genomic library in lambda ZAP, covering 9 x 10(4) kb, was screened with a combined poly(CA) + poly(GA) probe and yielded 120 positives, approximately one CA or GA microsatellite every 750 kb of the P. radiata genome. It was found that 25% of the positives were embedded within highly repetitive DNA. Four of the five subclones sequenced contained compound microsatellites, with TA predominating as the additional repeat. Segregation analysis of PCR products for two microsatellites, PR4.6 and PR9.3, in 96 progeny of a controlled outcross verified simple Mendelian inheritance. Both loci are highly polymorphic with Polymorphism Information Content values of 0.63 and 0.70 for PR4.6 and PR9.3, respectively. These results indicate that microsatellites are abundant in a conifer genome and can be valuable markers for pine mapping, fingerprinting, and population genetic studies.