Abundance and variation of microsatellite DNA sequences in beans (Phaseolus and Vigna)

Microsatellites or simple sequence repeats (SSRs) have been demonstrated to be abundant and hypervariable in some eukaryotic genomes. Although the presence of microsatellites is very well documented in many plant species, no information on microsatellites in beans (Phaseolus and Vigna) is available. To assess the abundance and usefulness of bean microsatellites as genetic markers, 326 DNA sequences from the GenBank databases were searched. Sixty-one simple repetitive DNA sequences with 23 different types of repetitive DNA motifs were identified as potential microsatellites. Among these were 49 microsatellites from common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) entries and 12 microsatellites from the genus Vigna. The most abundant type of microsatellite found in this search was that with di-nucleotide repeats of AT/TA Microsatellites with tri- and tetra-nucleotide motifs were also identified. PCR analysis of 12 of the microsatellite-containing loci revealed that 11 of the 12 primer pairs could produce easily-scorable fragments, or groups of fragments. Allelic variation of the 11 loci was surveyed in 12 common bean inbred lines representing a diversity of germplasms. Seven of the 11 microsatellite loci were polymorphic and yielded 2-10 alleles. Analyses of the polymorphic loci in a common bean F(6) recombinant inbred population showed that each segregated in a Mendelian fashion.