TITLE:
Isolation and characterization of polymorphic microsatellite loci for the valuable medicinal plant Astragalus mongholicus
AUTHORS:
Ao Wang, Wujisguleng Wujisguleng, Yujing Liu, Yue Liu, Chunlin Long
KEYWORDS:
Astragalus mongholicus; Medicinal Plant; Microsatellite; Molecular Marker; Population Genetics
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Genetics,
Vol.3 No.2,
June
25,
2013
ABSTRACT: Astragalus
mongholicus (Fabaceae) is a perennial herb and
a widely used medicinal plant in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) known as
Radix Astragali (Huangqi).
It was reported to have hepatoprotective, cardioprotective, antidiabetic, antiaging,
sedative and immunopotentiating effects, and could also be used
as an adjuvant medicine during cancer therapy. Until now, there is only a
little research on its population genetics and no report on development of
microsatellite loci for this plant. In this study, a microsatellite-enriched
genomic DNA library of A. mongholicus was developed and screened to identify marker loci. Ten polymorphic loci were
isolated and analyzed by screening 30 individuals. The number of alleles per locus
ranged from 4 to 19, with an average of 12.3 alleles per locus. The observed
heterozygosity (HO) and
the expected heterozygosity (HE)
ranged from 0.367 to 1.000 and from 0.395 to 0.912, respectively. The
polymorphism information content (PIC) varied from 0.361 to 0.888, with an
average of 0.762. This is the first report on characterization of microsatellite
loci for A. mongholicus, and these
markers will be useful for population genetics and molecular ecology studies of
this plant.