Microsatellites—A New Approach of Marker- Assisted Selection

ABSTRACT

A relatively new type of molecular markers are di-, tri- or tetranucleotide repeats, also called microsatellites which can be amplified by the polymerase chain reaction. Microsatellites as a marker system are especially useful for self-pollinating crops due to their high level of polymorphism based on varying numbers of repeats in different lines/accessions at one locus. The ability to detect a much higher level of polymorphism with microsatellites in eukaryotes than with RFLP markers are demonstrated in the work. For applications of microsatellites, the relatively low level of amplification of DNA fragments from homeologous loci is more than compensated by the higher level of polymorphism when compared to RFLP. The chromosomal and chromosome arm assignment of such markers is a valuable prerequisite for their application in breeding as a second generation markers in marker assisted selection.