Transferability of Genomic Simple Sequence Repeat and Expressed Sequence Tag-Simple Sequence Repeat Markers from Sorghum to Miscanthus sinensis, a Potential Biomass Crop

Miscanthus sinensis Andersson is a high-yielding perennial rhizomatous biomass crop with C4 photosynthesis and an important germplasm for Miscanthus breeding. Simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers are highly informative and widely used in many crop plants for genetic analyses and breeding applications. However, few SSR markers are available for M. sinensis research at present. In this study, 65 genomic SSR (gSSR) and 55 expressed sequence tag-SSR (eSSR) markers covering 10 linkage groups of sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] were evaluated for transferability to M. sinensis. Forty-three (66%) gSSR and 35 (64%) eSSR markers of sorghum could amplify Miscanthus DNA and generate specific and sharp bands. In M. sinensis, the percentage of polymorphic alleles was 90.9% for gSSR and 81.5% for eSSR, indicating that gSSR revealed relatively higher polymorphism than eSSR. A moderately high genetic diversity was detected in the sample M. sinensis population. Phylogenetic tree unambiguously distinguished sorghum from M. sinensis and clustered 21 M. sinensis accessions mainly into two groups showing significant geographic substructure differentiation. Principal coordinate analysis showed similar results as the phylogenetic analysis. The transferable sorghum SSR markers tested in this study should be useful for germplasm evaluation, genetic mapping, and marker-assisted selection of Miscanthus.