The art of attrition: development of robust oat microsatellites

Microsatellite or simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers are important tools for genetic analyses, especially those targeting diversity. The primary objective of this study was to develop robust oat-based microsatellite markers from newly enriched genomic libraries to expand on a relatively small existing oat SSR toolbox. Microsatellite motifs characterized by (CA/GT), (AAT/TTA), (ATG/TAC) and (CATC/GTAG) repeats were targeted for enrichment. Preliminary screening showed that 90% of clones from the (CA/GT) and 79% of the clones from the (ATG/TAC) libraries contained repeats, while < 11% of the clones from (AAT/TTA) and (CATC/GTAG) libraries contained repeats. Subsequent sequencing of 1536 clones from the (CA/GT) and (ATG/TAC) libraries resulted in 539 and 578 SSRs for which primers were designed, respectively. A total of 246 SSRs were polymorphic across 11 oat lines. One hundred and twenty-five of the markers produced highly reproducible assays that interrogated 369 alleles at 193 loci. Of these, 79 robust assays interrogated 146 codominant alleles. These markers will be useful for a wide range of genetic analyses in oat including assessment of diversity and marker-assisted breeding.