Ved Kumar Mishra, Vineeta Singh, Prashant Kumar Mishra, Ram Kusha Singh, Naveen Dwivedi, Shubha Dwivedi, Ashwani Kumar Singh and Prashant Ankur Jain
Saccharum is a complex genome characterized by high polity levels and composed of six distinct species S. officinarum, S. barberi, S. sinensi, S. spontaneum, S. robustum and S. edule. The commercial sugarcane is no longer pure Saccharum officinarum but a species hybrid, complex polyploidy with a large number of chromosomes. Sugarcane cultivars are characterized by a high polyploidy level with more than eight homologous copies of each basic chromosome of Saccharum officinarum and several copies of homologous chromosomes from S. spontaneum. This work is on screening and characterization of microsatellite or simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers which can be used as both a mapping tool, and a method for varietal identification and pedigree control in sugarcane. A molecular marker is an identifiable DNA region whose inheritance can be followed along generations. Microsatellites, also known as simple sequence repeats (SSR) or short tandem repeats (STR), are repeated sequence motifs, whose unit of repetition is between 1 and 6 bp. SSRs marker have broad range of applications, such as genome mapping and characterization, phenotype mapping, marker assisted selection of crop plants and a range of molecular biology and diversity studies. The optimum size for the primers is 18 bases, with a maximum of 24 bases. The optimum melting temperature is 55 �?¢�?�??�?¦C, with a minimum of 50 �?¢�?�??�?¦C and a maximum of 70 �?¢�?�??�?¦C. The optimum GC content is set to 50%, with a minimum of 30% and a maximum of 70%. Screening of these SSR primers are under process for tagging of sugar trait gene among Co86011 (high sugar) and UP9530 (low sugar) parents
