Hung Chih-Ming, Yu Ai-Yun, Lai Yu-Ting, Shaner Pei-Jen L
Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
Department of Life Science, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Sci Rep. 2016 Mar 15;6:23087. doi: 10.1038/srep23087.
Microsatellites have a wide range of applications from behavioral biology, evolution, to agriculture-based breeding programs. The recent progress in the next-generation sequencing technologies and the rapidly increasing number of published genomes may greatly enhance the current applications of microsatellites by turning them from anonymous to informative markers. Here we developed an approach to anchor microsatellite markers of any target species in a genome of a related model species, through which the genomic locations of the markers, along with any functional genes potentially linked to them, can be revealed. We mapped the shotgun sequence reads of a non-model rodent species Apodemus semotus against the genome of a model species, Mus musculus, and presented 24 polymorphic microsatellite markers with detailed background information for A. semotus in this study. The developed markers can be used in other rodent species, especially those that are closely related to A. semotus or M. musculus. Compared to the traditional approaches based on DNA cloning, our approach is likely to yield more loci for the same cost. This study is a timely demonstration of how a research team can efficiently generate informative (neutral or function-associated) microsatellite markers for their study species and unique biological questions.
微卫星有广泛的应用，从行为生物学、进化到基于农业的育种计划。下一代测序技术的最新进展以及已发表基因组数量的迅速增加，可能会通过将微卫星从无信息标记转变为有信息标记，极大地增强其当前的应用。在这里，我们开发了一种方法，将任何目标物种的微卫星标记定位到相关模式物种的基因组中，通过这种方法，可以揭示标记的基因组位置以及任何可能与其连锁的功能基因。我们将一种非模式啮齿动物物种黑线姬鼠的鸟枪法序列读数与模式物种小家鼠的基因组进行比对，并在本研究中给出了24个多态性微卫星标记以及黑线姬鼠的详细背景信息。所开发的标记可用于其他啮齿动物物种，特别是那些与黑线姬鼠或小家鼠密切相关的物种。与基于DNA克隆的传统方法相比，我们的方法在相同成本下可能会产生更多的位点。这项研究及时展示了一个研究团队如何能够为其研究物种和独特的生物学问题高效地生成有信息（中性或与功能相关）的微卫星标记。
