SHORT COMMUNICATION Development of Genome-wide Simple Sequence Repeat Markers Using Whole-genome Shotgun Sequences of Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench)

Simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers with a high degree of polymorphism contribute to the molecular dissection of agriculturally important traits in sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench). We designed 5599 non-redundant SSR markers, including regions flanking the SSRs, in whole-genome shotgun sequences of sorghum line ATx623. (AT/TA)n repeats constituted 26.1 % of all SSRs, followed by (AG/TC)n at 20.5%, (AC/TG)n at 13.7 % and (CG/GC)n at 11.8%. The chromosomal locations of 5012 SSR markers were deter-mined by comparing the locations identified by means of electronic PCR with the predicted positions of 34 008 gene loci. Most SSR markers had a similar distribution to the gene loci. Among 970 markers vali-dated by fragment analysis, 67.8 % (658 of 970) markers successfully provided PCR amplification in sorghum line BTx623, with a mean polymorphism rate of 45.1 % (297 of 658) for all SSR loci in combi-nations of 11 sorghum lines and one sudangrass (Sorghum sudanense (Piper) Stapf) line. The product of 5012 and 0.678 suggests that 3400 SSR markers could be used to detect SSR polymorphisms and that more than 1500 (45.1 % of 3400) markers could reveal SSR polymorphisms in combinations of Sorghum lines. Key words: sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench); simple sequence repeat (SSR); fragment analysis; genome-wide Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) is the world’s fifth most important cereal crop, after wheat, rice, maize and barley1 and was grown on 43 million hectares in 200