Transferability of microsatellite loci in Coffea canephora.

Coffee is one of the most important international trade commodities. Good prospects presented by the application of SSR markers to access the diversity in Coffea, and the small number of SSR primers available for C. canephora, encouraged the realization of this study. Thus, we tested the heterologous amplification of 71 microsatellite markers, originally developed for Coffea arabica, in Coffea canephora. Heterologous amplification occurred with 38 of the 71 primers. Approximately 52.63% of the primers used were polymorphic; 35% of the primer sets were classified as non-informative, 50% as moderately informative and 15% as highly informative. The loci evaluated by SSRCa 088, M793, SSRCa 054, SSRCa 085, CM5, M25, CFGA54 were low informative; SSRCa 084, SSRCa 052 and SSRCa 040 were highly informative. The validated primer sets can be used in molecular studies for different purposes once they were efficient in the genotypes discrimination