Rapid gene-based SNP and haplotype marker development in non-model eukaryotes using 3'UTR sequencing

Abstract

BackgroundSweet cherry (Prunus avium L.), a non-model crop with narrow genetic diversity, is an important member of sub-family Amygdoloideae within Rosaceae. Compared to other important members like peach and apple, sweet cherry lacks in genetic and genomic information, impeding understanding of important biological processes and development of efficient breeding approaches. Availability of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based molecular markers can greatly benefit breeding efforts in such non-model species. RNA-seq approaches employing second generation sequencing platforms offer a unique avenue to rapidly identify gene-based SNPs. Additionally, haplotype markers can be rapidly generated from transcript-based SNPs since they have been found to be extremely utile in identification of genetic variants related to health, disease and response to environment as highlighted by the human HapMap project.ResultsRNA-seq was performed on two sweet cherry cultivars, Bing and Rainier using a 3' untranslated region (UTR) sequencing method yielding 43,396 assembled contigs. In order to test our approach of rapid identification of SNPs without any reference genome information, over 25% (10,100) of the contigs were screened for the SNPs. A total of 207 contigs from this set were identified to contain high quality SNPs. A set of 223 primer pairs were designed to amplify SNP containing regions from these contigs and high resolution melting (HRM) analysis was performed with eight important parental sweet cherry cultivars. Six of the parent cultivars were distantly related to Bing and Rainier, the cultivars used for initial SNP discovery. Further, HRM analysis was also performed on 13 seedlings derived from a cross between two of the parents. Our analysis resulted in the identification of 84 (38.7%) primer sets that demonstrated variation among the tested germplasm. Reassembly of the raw 3'UTR sequences using upgraded transcriptome assembly software yielded 34,620 contigs containing 2243 putative SNPs in 887 contigs after stringent filtering. Contigs with multiple SNPs were visually parsed to identify 685 putative haplotypes at 335 loci in 301 contigs.ConclusionsThis approach, which leverages the advantages of RNA-seq approaches, enabled rapid generation of gene-linked SNP and haplotype markers. The general approach presented in this study can be easily applied to other non-model eukaryotes irrespective of the ploidy level to identify gene-linked polymorphisms that are expected to facilitate efficient Gene Assisted Breeding (GAB), genotyping and population genetics studies. The identified SNP haplotypes reveal some of the allelic differences in the two sweet cherry cultivars analyzed. The identification of these SNP and haplotype markers is expected to significantly improve the genomic resources for sweet cherry and facilitate efficient GAB in this non-model crop.

A Toolkit for bulk PCR-based marker design from next-generation sequence data: application for development of a framework linkage map in bulb onion (Allium cepa L.)

“…This SNP conversion rate is higher than the 25% found in onion previously [22] and similar to the 51% found for pine [38]. Koepke et al [39] reported a validation rate of 30.5% from HRM primers designed using 3 ′ UTR sequencing data.…”

SNP development for genetic diversity analysis in apricot

“…In Prunus species, Ahmad et al (2011) identified 6654 SNPs distributed throughout all of the peach (Prunus persica L. Batsch; 2n=2x=16) genome scaffolds using DNA-Seq. Koepke et al (2012) also described the identification of 2243 putative SNPs by filtering RNA-Seq data from two sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.; 2n= 2x=16) transcriptomes. Peace et al (2012) verified 3883 polymorphic SNPs in 24 sweet and sour cherry (Prunus cerasus L.; 2n=4x=32) cultivars using DNA-Seq and included these SNPs in the RosBREED cherry 6 K SNP array v1.…”

SNP Discovery through Next-Generation Sequencing and Its Applications

“…The area of epigenetic regulation of various genome components can be better understood as accurate and deeper sequencing is achieved. RNA and ChIP-sequencing projects, similar to RNA-Seq in the nonmodel plant sweet cherry to identify SNPs and haplotypes [146], can be undertaken to study functional genomics. A great deal of knowledge that is still elusive about the noncoding and repetitive elements can be determined with the next wave of modern and efficient sequencing technologies.…”