Development of Novel Microsatellite Markers in Jatropha curcas and Evaluation of Their Cross-Species Transferability

Jatropha curcas has been a species of interest all over the world due to its potential as a renewable biodiesel crop. In the present paper, a set of 40 novel genomic microsatellites from Jatropha developed through cloning and sequencing are reported. The microsatellite markers were evaluated at intra-specific, inter-specific and intergeneric levels. All forty markers successfully amplified fragments from J. curcas and J. integerrima showing their potential in linkage mapping using inter-specific breeding populations involving these species. The average number of alleles within 12 core accessions of J. curcas was 3.083. Polymorphic information content ranged from 0.15 to 0.80 within J. curcas accessions and from 0 to 0.37 among different genera. There was no significant deviation from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium or linkage disequilibrium. Ten of these microsatellites showed polymorphism within Emblica officinalis while thirteen were polymorphic within Phyllanthus niruri and Ricinus communis accessions. These new set of microsatellite markers are expected to be especially useful in future for linkage mapping in J. curcas and for varietal identification and genetic diversity studies in other genera mentioned above.