Characterization of EST-derived microsatellites for gene mapping and evolutionary genomics in turbot

The detection of microsatellite sequences within expressed sequence tags (ESTs) connects potential markers with specific genes, generating type I markers. We have developed and mapped by linkage analysis a set of EST-derived microsatellites in the turbot, Scophthalmus maximus. One hundred and ninety-one microsatellites were identified from 9256 turbot ESTs. Primer design was possible with 98 microsatellites. After genotyping 25 wild turbot and the parents of two reference families for linkage analysis, 43 EST-derived microsatellites were selected because they met technical and polymorphism criteria. A final set of 31 EST-derived microsatellites could be mapped to 17 linkage groups of the turbot consensus map based on 242 anonymous microsatellites. Twenty-four microsatellite-containing ESTs were functionally annotated, confirming them as type I markers. Nineteen were mapped in the turbot consensus map. These EST-derived microsatellites constitute useful tools for genome scanning of turbot populations, marker-assisted selection programmes and comparative mapping.