ABSTRACT

The ubiquity of simple sequence repeats (SSRs) in eukaryotic genomes and their usefulness as genetic markers is now well established. A recent advance in molecular marker development has been the mining of simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers from BAC-end sequence data. SSRs are desirable for use in marker systems because they are highly polymorphic, abundant, widely dispersed throughout eukaryotic genomes, transportable between laboratories, and are inherited in a co-dominant fashion. This approach provides a rich and novel source of new PCR-based markers, and the markers that are identified can be traced back to specific large-insert clones in the public cotton BAC library. This advantage has further applications towards map-based cloning and physical mapping of the entire cotton genome. Here we report on the development of SSRs from random sequencing of BAC clones from a large-insert library derived from the elite Upland cultivar Gossypium hirsutum L. Maxxa.