Development of Expressed Sequence Tag Simple Sequence Repeat (EST-SSR) Markers and Genetic Resource Analysis of Tea Oil Plants ( Camellia Spp.)

Tea oil plants are economically valuable as a chemical feedstock, a bioenergy source, and a dietary supplement. The lack of molecular markers for genetic resource clustering for conservation restricts research on these species. Based on EST sequences, 28,120 SSR primer pairs were found in this study. Of those SSRs, 192 had a successful amplification rate of 93.23% in Camellia oleifera and high transferability rates in C. semiserrata (77.09%), C. gauchowensis (84.92%), C. japonica (78.77%), and C. polyodonta (89.39%). The genetic distance (GD) between 54 accessions, as determined by sixteen SSRs, ranged from 0.26 to 2.26 (GD > 0), indicating that these accessions could be discriminated completely by these sixteen SSRs. We suggest that the EST-SSRs generated in this study will be useful for resource identification and dendrogram construction for resource collection and conservation.