Data Mining for Simple Sequence Repeats in Oil Palm Expressed Sequence Tags

Expressed Sequence Tags or ESTs are small pieces of DNA sequence that are generated by sequencing either one or both ends of an expressed gene. ESTs provide researchers with a quick and inexpensive route for discovering new genes, for obtaining data on gene expression and regulation, and for constructing genome maps. Oil palm EST sequences as available in public domain are downloaded. They were grouped and made contigs using CAP3 and Phrap. Microsatellite repeats are located using 5 softwares (MISA, TRA, TROLL, SSRIT, SSR primer). Among the 5 methods MISA is found to be the best. It can elucidate the compound repeat also. Frequency and total number (202) of SSR were detected. Mononucleotide repeat is more abundant especially ‘A/T’ repeats in Oil palm. Flanking primers were designed using primer3, SSR primers. The results of the study are given as an online database ‘MEMCO’ to help Oil palm researchers