Development Of Pansies Est-Ssr Markers And Analysis Of Genetic Relationships Among Pansy And Related Species

Although pansies (Viola x wittrockiana) are popular bedding flowers around the world, there is a limited availability of genomic resources, especially of the expressed sequence tag (EST)-SSR markers. In this study, 70 specific EST-SSR primers obtained from transcriptome sequencing of pansy leaves were selected to validate as available markers for pansies. Amplification across 35 pansy accessions revealed that 49 (70%) EST-SSR primers were successfully amplified DNA and generated a total of 309 amplicons and 283 polymorphic alleles. These markers exhibited high cross-species transferability by more than 80% from V. x wittrockiana to other species of Viola genus. The principal components analysis based on these EST-SSRs clearly separated two species of section Viola from the species of section Melanium and validated the proximity of V. x wittrockiana with V. cornuta and V. tricolor, confirming V. cornuta participating in the hybridization process of V. x wittrockiana, which was also supported by the results of analysis of molecular variance. The EST-SSR markers developed in this study can be used in molecular marker breeding and evolution analysis for Viola. (C) 2020 Friends Science Publishers