Isolation of microsatellite markers in Sargassum vachellianum
In this study,the anchored PCR technology was used to filter microsatellite enriched library of Sargassum vachellianum.The positive clones containing microsatellite sequences were screened by PCR technique.In the 523 white colonies screened,214 clones contained microsatellite repeat sequences.Of the 214 clones,105 clones (20.1%) with unique regions flanking the microsatellite array were promising for primer design,109 clones did not have sufficient quality sequences on both sides of the repeat.According to Weber,the microsatellite sequences could be categorized structurally as follows:perfect (50%),imperfect (2.3%) and compound,(47.7%).Besides the motif of CT,GT and CAC contained in the degenerate primers,we also found AC,GA,CG,AT,CTA,TAG and AGT repeats.Among the microsatellite repeats,relatively short arrays 6-10 repeats were the most abundant (92%),and the largest array contained 23 repeats.The microsatellite-enriched library created in this study will be useful resource for developing additional anonymous microsatellite markers for S.vachellianum in the future.