Isolation and characterization of microsatellite loci in the striped mullet, Mugil cephalus

Abstract

Forty‐three microsatellites were isolated from grey mullet (Mugil cephalus) of Mediterranean origin using the standard enrichment methods followed by enhanced chemiluminescence for the rapid identification of clones containing microsatellites. Eleven microsatellites were characterized to assess genetic diversity of different populations surrounding the island of Sardinia in Italy. The versatility of these markers was also assessed using an Australian population. All 11 microsatellites were highly polymorphic with a mean heterozygosity of 0.834. The number of alleles ranged from 14 to 38 in the Sardinian populations and from 11 to 25 in the Australian samples.

New SNPs for population genetic analysis reveal possible cryptic speciation of eastern Australian sea mullet (Mugil cephalus)

“…A validated subset of only 15 of these and previously published microsatellite loci (Miggiano et al . ; Shen et al . ) will provide ample power for population genetic analysis in the future.…”

“…Assuming previously reported averages of about ten alleles per microsatellite locus in sea mullet (Miggiano et al . ; Shen et al . ), power estimates in this study can therefore be expected to be reasonably accurate.…”

“…However, 92 SNPs along with 27 sufficiently flanked microsatellite loci in eastern Australian sea mullet have been discovered as a result of low-pass pyrosequencing in this study. A validated subset of only 15 of these and previously published microsatellite loci (Miggiano et al 2005;Shen et al 2011) will provide ample power for population genetic analysis in the future. Further power increases would be achieved by combining microsatellites and validated SNPs available from this study.…”

“…The power of microsatellites was simulated considering two scenarios (15 and 30 loci) and assuming 10 alleles per locus, which is slightly below the average number of alleles per locus reported in previous studies on sea mullet in the study area and elsewhere (Miggiano et al 2005;Shen et al 2011). Three allele frequency distributions were initially considered for sensitivity tests (Fig.…”

Development and characterization of polymorphic microsatellite markers in the gray mullet (Mugil cephalus)

“…Because they are co-dominant and highly polymorphic, microsatellite DNA markers have been successfully used in revealing population genetic diversity (Sekino and Hara, 2001;Selkoe and Toonen, 2006;Liu et al, 2009). Although it is an important commercial fish species, only 11 polymorphic microsatellite markers have been reported (Miggiano et al, 2005). Lack of sufficient and polymorphic molecular markers has limited the development of molecular phylogeny, population structure and molecule-assisted selective breeding in this fish species.…”