Development of SSR markers based on the head transcriptome of Pantala flavescens (Fabricius, 1798) (Odonata: Libellulidae)

Abstract

Pantala flavescens (Fabricius, 1798) is one of the most common species of dragonflies and has been found throughout from tropic to temperate zones worldwide. In this study, RNA-seq of P. flavescens was carried out through Illumina high-throughput sequencing technology. Approximately 37,868 unigenes and 47,188 transcripts were obtained. The average length of the assembled unigenes was 908.59 bp. We identified 1442 cDNA simple sequence repeats (SSRs) among the 37,868 unigenes, with 864 (59.91%) di-nucleotide repeats, 537 (37.32%) tri-nucleotide repeats, 32 (2.22%) complex-nucleotide repeats, and 9 (0.62%) with tetra-nucleotide repeats. Sixty microsatellite molecular markers were randomly selected to test amplification. Of the 60 markers, 32 (53.33%) produced clear amplicons of the expected size, 10 (16.67%) amplified nonspecific products, and 18 (30%) failed to amplify the DNA products. In order to assess their applicability, genetic diversity of the 32 SSR loci was tested in 32 individuals from Nanchang in China. Of these loci, 14 markers were highly polymorphic, with the observed (Ho) and expected (He) heterozygosities ranged 0.69 to 0.88 and from 0.96 to 0.98 respectively. PIC ranged from 0.52 to 0.83. These highly polymorphic loci will be valuable for the genetic analysis of distinct populations of P. flavescens.

Keywords: dragonfly, transcriptome sequencing, microsatellite, genetic diversity

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