Transferability of Microsatellite Markers from Cucumber (Cucumis sativus) to Seven Cultivated Cucurbit Crops

Abstract

Plant breeding relies heavily on genetic resources with high genetic diversity presence in nature. Lack of genomic resources can slow down molecular characterization of any plant species. Transferability of SSR markers is when SSRs developed in one species can cross amplify in other species. Cucumber is an economically important fruit crop in the family Cucurbitaceae with many already developed Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR). We evaluated 515 cucumber-derived SSR markers in seven less studied cucurbit crops consisting of fifty one accessions. The transferability rate was 6.94% in pumpkin, 17.09% in wax gourd, 19.81% in bottle gourd, 13.27% in luffa, 45.05% in melon, 18.55% in watermelon and 8.76% in bitter gourd. Genetic diversity analysis classified tested plant species into five clades corresponding to four tribes. The result indicated that cucumber derived genetic tools are applicable to decipher genetic information in other cucurbit species.