Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Tall fescue EST-SSR markers with transferability across several grass species

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Theoretical and Applied Genetics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) is a major cool season forage and turf grass in the temperate regions of the world. It is also a close relative of other important forage and turf grasses, including meadow fescue and the cultivated ryegrass species. Until now, no SSR markers have been developed from the tall fescue genome. We designed 157 EST-SSR primer pairs from tall fescue ESTs and tested them on 11 genotypes representing seven grass species. Nearly 92% of the primer pairs produced characteristic simple sequence repeat (SSR) bands in at least one species. A large proportion of the primer pairs produced clear reproducible bands in other grass species, with most success in the close taxonomic relatives of tall fescue. A high level of marker polymorphism was observed in the outcrossing species tall fescue and ryegrass (66%). The marker polymorphism in the self-pollinated species rice and wheat was low (43% and 38%, respectively). These SSR markers were useful in the evaluation of genetic relationships among the Festuca and Lolium species. Sequencing of selected PCR bands revealed that the nucleotide sequences of the forage grass genotypes were highly conserved. The two cereal species, particularly rice, had significantly different nucleotide sequences compared to the forage grasses. Our results indicate that the tall fescue EST-SSR markers are valuable genetic markers for the Festuca and Lolium genera. These are also potentially useful markers for comparative genomics among several grass species.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Ahn SN, Tanksley SD (1993) Comparative linkage maps of the rice and maize genomes. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 90:7980–7984

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Alm V, Fang C, Busso CS, Devos KM, Vollan K, Grieg Z, Rognli OA (2003) A linkage map of meadow fescue (Festuca pratensis Huds.) and comparative mapping with other Poaceae species. Theor Appl Genet 108:25–40

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Anderson JA, Ogihara Y, Sorrells ME, Tanksley SD (1992) Development of a chromosomal arm map for wheat based on RFLP markers. Theor Appl Genet 83:1035–1043

    Google Scholar 

  • Ayers NM, McClung AM, Larkin PD, Bligh HFJ, Jones CA, Park WD (1997) Microsatellite and single nucleotide polymorphism differentiate apparent amylose classes in an extended pedigree of US rice germplasm. Theor Appl Genet 94:773–781

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Brown-Guedira GL, Thomson JA, Nelson RL, Warburton ML (2000) Evaluation of genetic diversity of soybean introductions and North American ancestors using RAPD and SSR markers. Crop Sci 40:815–823

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Cordeiro GM, Casu R, McIntyre CL, Manners JM, Henry RJ (2001) Microsatellite markers from sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) ESTs cross transferable to erianthus and sorghum. Plant Sci 160:1115–1123

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Devos KN, Millan T, Gale MD (1993) Comparative RFLP maps of homologous group 2 chromosomes of wheat, rye and barley. Theor Appl Genet 85:784–792

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Devos KM, Wang ZM, Beales J, Sasaki T, Gale MD (1998) Comparative genetic maps of foxtail millet (Setaria italica) and rice (Oryza sativa). Theor Appl Genet 96:63–68

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Dice LR (1945) Measures of the amount of ecologic association between species. Ecology 26:297–302

    Google Scholar 

  • Dirlewanger E, Cosson P, Tavaud M, Aranzana MJ, Poizat C, Zanettto A, Arús P, Laigret F (2002) Development of microsatellite markers in peach [Prunus persica (L.) Batsch] and their use in genetic diversity analysis in peach and sweet cherry (Prunus aviumL.). Theor Appl Genet 105:127–138

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Eujayl I, Sorrells ME, Wolters P, Baum M, Powell W (2002) Isolation of EST-derived microsatellite markers for genotyping the A and B genomes of wheat. Theor Appl Genet 104:399–407

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Eujayl I, Sledge MK, Wang L, May GD, Chekhovskiy K, Zwonitzer JC, Mian MAR (2004) Medicago truncatula EST-SSRs reveal cross-species genetic markers for Medicago spp. Theor Appl Genet 108:414–422

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gaitán-Solís E, Duque MC, Edwards KJ, Tohme J (2002) Microsatellite repeats in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris): isolation, characterization, and cross-species amplification in Phaseolus ssp. Crop Sci 42:2128–2136

    Google Scholar 

  • Gale MD, Devos KM (1998) Comparative genetics in the grasses. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 95:1971–1974

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Grivet L, D’Hont A, Dufour P, Roques D, Glaszmann JC (1994) Comparative mapping of sugar cane with other species within the Andropogoneae tribe. Heredity 73:500–508

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hackauf B, Wehling P (2002) Identification of microsatellite polymorphisms in an expressed portion of the rye genome. Plant Breed 121:17–25

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Jones ES, Mahoney NL, Hayward MD, Armstead IP, Jones JG, Humphreys MO, King IP, Kishida T, Yamada T, Balfourier F, Charmet G, Forster JW (2002) An enhanced molecular marker-based genetic map of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) reveals comparative relationships with other Poaceae genomes. Genome 45:282–295

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kantety RV, Rota ML, Matthews DE, Sorrells ME (2002) Data mining for simple sequence repeats in expressed sequence tags from barley, maize, rice, sorghum and wheat. Plant Mol Biol 48:501–510

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kilian A, Chen J, Han F, Steffenson B, Kleinhofs A (1997) Towards map-based cloning of the barley stem rust resistance genes Rpg1 and rpg4 using rice as an intergenomic cloning vehicle. Plant Mol Biol 35:187–195

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Klein PE, Klein RR, Vrebalov J, Mullet JE (2003) Sequence based alignment of sorghum chromosome 3 and rice chromosome 1 reveals extensive conservation of gene order and one major chromosomal rearrangement. Plant J 34:605–621

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kurata N, Moore G, Nagumara Y, Foote T, Yano M, Minobe Y, Gale M (1994) Conservation of genome structure between rice and wheat. Biotechnology 12:276–278

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Melake Berhan A, Hulbert SH, Bulter LG, Bennetzen JL (1993) Structure and evolution of the genomes of Sorghum bicolorand Zea mays. Theor Appl Genet 86:598–604

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mian, MAR, Wang Z, Eujayl I, Zhang J, Chen L, Scott AD, Gonzales RA, Hopkins AA, May GD (2002) EST and expression analysis in tall fescue (abstract). In: Plant and animal genome X, the international conference on the status of plant and animal genome research, 12–16 January 2002, San Diego, p 92

  • Naranjo T, Roca P, Goicoechea PG, Giradlez R (1987) Arm homology of wheat and rye chromosomes. Genome 29:873–882

    Google Scholar 

  • Nei M, Li WH (1979) Mathematical model for studying genetic variation in terms of restriction endonucleases. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 76:5269–5273

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Peakall R, Gilmore S, Keys W, Morgante M, Rafalski A (1998) Cross species amplification of soybean (Glycine max) simple sequence repeat (SSRs) within the genus and other legume genera: implication for transferability of SSRs in plants. Mol Biol Evol 15:1275–1287

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Roa AC, Chavarriaga-Aguirre P, Duque MC, Maya MM, Bonierbale MW, Iglesias C, Tohme J (2000) Cross-species amplification of cassava (Manihot esculenta) (Euphorbiaceae) microsatellites: allelic polymorphism and degree of relationship. Am J Bot 87:1647–1655

    Google Scholar 

  • Rohlf FJ (2002) NTSYS-pc. Numerical taxonomy and multivariate analysis system, Version 2.10. Exeter Software, New York

  • Saha MC, Zwonitzer JC, Hopkins AA, Mian MAR (2003) A molecular linkage map of a tall fescue population segregating for forage quality traits. In: Molecular breeding of forage and turf, 3rd international symposium, 18–22 May 2003, Dallas, p 86

  • Scott KD, Eggler P, Seaton G, Rossetto M, Ablett EM, Lee LS, Henry RJ (2000) Analysis of SSRs derived from grape ESTs. Theor Appl Genet 100:723–726

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Seal AG (1983) DNA variation in Festuca. Heredity 50:225–236

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sleper DA (1985) Breeding tall fescue. J Plant Breed Rev 3:313–342

    Google Scholar 

  • Soreng RJ, Davis JI (1998) Phylogenetic and character evolution in the grass family (Poaceae): simultaneous analysis of morphology and chloroplast DNA restriction site character sets. Bot Rev 64:1–85

    Google Scholar 

  • Sorrells ME, La Rota M, Bermudez-Kandianis CE, Greene RA, Kantety R, Munkvold JD, Miftahudin M, Mahmoud A, Ma X, Gustafson PJ, Qi LL, Echalier B, Gill BS, Matthews DE, Lazo GR, Chao S, Anderson OD, Edwards H, Linkiewicz AM, Dubcovsky J, Akhunov ED, Dvorak J, Zhang D, Nguyen HT, Peng J, Lapitan NLV, Gonzalez-Hernandez JL, Anderson JA, Hossain K, Kalavacharla V, Kianian SF, Choi DW, Close TJ, Dilbirligi M, Gill KS, Steber C, Walker-Simmons MK, McGuire PE, Qualset CO (2003) Comparative DNA sequence analysis of wheat and rice genomes. Genet Res 13:1818–1827

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Squirrell J, Hollingsworth PM, Woodhead M, Russell J, Lowe AJ, Gibby M, Powell W (2003) How much effort is required to isolate nuclear microsatellites from plants? Mol Ecol 12:1339–1348

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Temnykh S, Park WD, Ayers N, Cartinhour S, Hauck N, Lipovich L, Cho YG, Ishii T, McCouch SR (2000) Mapping and genome organization of microsatellite sequences in rice (Oryza sativa L.). Theor Appl Genet 100:697–712

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Terrell EE (1966) Taxonomic implications of genetics in ryegrass (Lolium). Bot Rev 32:138–164

    Google Scholar 

  • Thiel T, Michalek W, Varshney RK, Graner A (2003) Exploiting EST databases for the development and characterization of gene-derived SSR-markers in barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). Theor Appl Genet 106:411–422

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Van Deynze AE, Dubcovsky J, Gill KS, Nelson JC, Sorrells ME, Dvorak J, Gill BS, Lagudah ES, McCouch SR, Appels R (1995a) Molecular-genetic maps for chromosome 1 in Triticeae species and their relation to chromosomes in rice and oats. Genome 38:45–59

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Van Deynze AE, Nelson JC, O’Donoughue LS, Ahn SN, Siripoonwiwat W, Harrington SE, Yglesias ES, Braga DP, McCouch SR, Sorrells ME (1995b) Comparative mapping in grasses. Oat relationships. Mol Gen Genet 249:349–356

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Warnke S, Barker R, Sim S, Jung G, Mian MAR (2003) Identification of flowering time QTLs in an annual x perennial ryegrass mapping population (abstract). In: Molecular breeding of forage and turf, 3rd international symposium, 18–22 May 2003, Dallas, p 122

  • White G, Powell W (1997) Isolation and characterization of microsatellite loci in Swietenia humilis (Meliaceae): an endangered tropical hardwood species. Mol Ecol 6:851–860

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Whitkus R, Doebley J, Lee M (1992) Comparative genome mapping of sorghum and maize. Genetics 132:1119–1130

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Xu WW, Sleper DA (1994) Phylogeny of tall fescue and related species using RFLPs. Theor Appl Genet 88:685–690

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Xu WW, Sleper DA, Chao S (1995) Genome mapping of polyploid tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) with RFLP markers. Theor Appl Genet 91:947–955

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Yu J, Dake TM, Singh S, Benscher D, Li W, Gill B, Sorrells ME (2004) Development and mapping of EST-derived simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers for hexaploid wheat. Genome Res (in press)

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Mark E. Sorrells for critically reviewing this manuscript. We also thank Konstantin Chekhovskiy, Jennifer Black, Ann Harris, and Jarrod Steele for their technical support. This research work was funded by The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, 2510 Sam Noble Parkway, Ardmore, OK 73401, USA

    Malay C. Saha, M. A. Rouf Mian, Imad Eujayl, John C. Zwonitzer, Liangjiang Wang & Gregory D. May

  2. Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Washington State University, E202 Food Quality Building, WWQL, Pullman, WA 99164, USA

    Imad Eujayl

Authors
  1. Malay C. Saha
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. M. A. Rouf Mian
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Imad Eujayl
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. John C. Zwonitzer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Liangjiang Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Gregory D. May
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. A. Rouf Mian.

Additional information

Communicated by P. Langridge

Electronic Supplementary Material

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Saha, M.C., Mian, M.A.R., Eujayl, I. et al. Tall fescue EST-SSR markers with transferability across several grass species. Theor Appl Genet 109, 783–791 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-004-1681-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-004-1681-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation