Microsatellite Markers: An Important DNA Fingerprinting Tool for Characterization of Crop Plants

By : Radheshyam Sharma , S.R. Maloo , Sharda Choudhary , Devendra Jain

Page No: 83-90

Abstract
Recent improvements in molecular analysis and genotyping methods lead to rapid expansion of the power of molecular markers. Genetic variation detection helps to researchers to understand the molecular basis of various biological phenomena in plants. In recent years, a new category of sophisticated molecular marker techniques has emerged, primarily derived from combination of PCR with non-arbitrary sequences of the genome. Microsatellites or simple sequence repeats (SSRs) or short tandem repeats (STRs) or simple sequence length polymorphism (SSLP) are tandem repeats of 2-6 nucleotides long DNA motifs. They appear to be ubiquitous in plant genomes, including organelles genome and involving repetitive as well as unique sequences. They are abundant, present in the whole genome and detect high levels of polymorphism, co-dominant and genome specific, although the frequency of microsatellites varies between species than any other molecular markers. Thus for characterization of biological traits, microsatellites or simple sequence repeats (SSRs) has been playing an increasing role in plant genetics and breeding owing to many desirable genetic attributes including hyper variability, multiallelic nature, co-dominant inheritance, reproducibility, relative abundance, extensive genomic coverage. Microsatellite markers are used for examination of genetic relationships between individuals, mapping of desirable genes, construction of saturated linkage maps, marker assisted selection, backcrosses, population genetics and phylogenetic studies. In this review we have tried to discuss recent progress in plants using microsatellite markers.

Authors :
Radheshyam Sharma and Sharda Choudhary : National Research Center on Seed Spices, Tabiji, Ajmer, Rajasthan, India.
S.R. Maloo and Devendra Jain : Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Rajasthan College of Agriculture, MPUA, Udaipur 313001, India.