Large-scale development of microsatellite markers in Nicotiana tabacum and construction of a genetic map of flue-cured tobacco

With 1 figure and 1 table Abstract Molecular markers and genetic maps are useful tools for genetic research and molecular breeding. Although significant progress has been made recently on molecular marker development and genetic map construction in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum), more efforts are still required to meet the needs of genetic research and breeding in this allotetraploid species. In this study, based on the expressed sequence tag (EST) data and genome sequence data of N. tabacum, we developed a total of 4886 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers (including 1365 genomic SSRs and 3521 EST-SSRs), which were functional in a set of eight tobacco varieties of four different types and were basically novel. Using these newly developed SSR markers as well as published SSR markers and a population of 207 double haploid (DH) lines derived from a cross between two flue-cured tobacco varieties Honghua Dajinyuan and Hicks Broad Leaf, we constructed a genetic map consisting of 611 SSR loci distributed on 24 tentative linkage groups and covering a total length of 1882.1 cM with an average distance of 3.1 cM between adjacent markers.