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International Journal of Aquaculture 2012
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5
A Letter Open Access
Microsatellite Marker Development and Characterization in the Spotted Babylon,
Babylonia areolata (Link, 1807): Detection of Duplicated Loci at High Frequency
Nan Zhang
*
, Ying Qiu
*
, Xuzhen Huang , Xuefen Chen , Aimin Wang , Yan Wang
Key Laboratory of Tropical Biological Resources of Ministry of Education, Hainan Provincial Key Laboratory of Tropical Hydrobiology and Biotechnology,
Marine Biology Experiment Teaching Demonstration Center, Ocean College, Hainan University, 58 Renmin Rd, Haikou, 570228, P.R. China
Corresponding authors email: wy2005@163.com;
Authors
* The authors who contribute equally
International Journal of Aquaculture, 2012, Vol.2, No.2 doi: 10.5376/ija.2012.02.0002
Received: 15 Mar., 2012
Accepted: 06 Apr., 2012
Published: 11 May, 2012
This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction
in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Zhang et al., 2012, Microsatellite Marker Development and Characterization in the Spotted Babylon,
Babylonia areolata
(Link, 1807): Detection of Duplicated
Loci at High Frequency, International Journal of Aquaculture, Vol.2, No.2 5-10 (doi: 10.5376/ija.2012. 02.0002)
Abstract
Four polymorphic microsatellite markers were developed for the spotted babylon, Babylonia areolata, from a
microsatellite enriched library. Those markers, characterized in 32 individuals from one wild population, were polymorphic with
allele numbers ranging from 5 to 15 per locus, expected and observed heterozygosity ranging from 0.60 to 0.92 and from 0.36 to 0.88,
respectively. One locus showed significant (p<0.05 after Bonferroni correction) deviation from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium,
probably due to the presence of null alleles. These microsatellite markers should be useful for population genetics studies in this
species. In addition, nine primer pairs amplified duplicated microsatellites, with four multiple loci clearly linked in tandem, which
provides a good opportunity to study the evolution of repetitive DNA sequences in the genome.
Keywords
Babylonia areolata
; Microsatellites; Duplicated loci; Population genetics; Fishery; Gastropod; Spotted Babylon y
Introduction
The spotted babylon
Babylonia areolata
(Link, 1807),
also called maculated ivory whelk, is a marine
gastropod mollusc distributed in southeastern Asia. Its
geographic distribution stretches from Ceylon and
Nicobar Islands through the Gulf of Thailand, along
Vietnamese and Chinese coasts to Taiwan (Altena and
Gittenberger, 1981). It is mostly found on mud and
sandy littoral bottoms not exceeding 5~10 m in depth
(Panichasuk, 1996). The spotted babylon is a popular
model mollusk used in studies on heavy-metal toxicity
and biologic poisoning toxins transmission studies
(Chen and Chou, 1998; Supanopas et al., 2005;
Tanhan et al., 2005) since its being the popular and
nutritious seafood. Recent years the wild populations
have declined rapidly duo to fast-growing demand for
consumption and environmental pollution. The spotted
babylon has been a commercially important aquaculture
species in Thailand (Chaitanawisuti et al., 2002;
Kritsanapuntu et al., 2006) and China (Liang et al.,
2005). The individuals from Thailand have greater
growth vigor than native ones in Hainan Island, so
most hatchery populations in Hainan come from
Thailand lines. But little is known about the genetic
structure and variation in this species (Hualkasin et al.,
2008; Wang et al., 2011a). To support population
structure analyses and facilitate stock management
(Wang et al., 2010b), we developed a microsatellite
enriched library and characterized 4 novel polymorphic
microsatellite markers for the spotted babylon. In
addition, we found high percentage of duplicated
microsatellites clearly linked in tandem, which
provides a good opportunity to study the evolution of
repetitive DNA sequences in the genome though these
multi-locus microsatellites may not be suitable for
using as genetic markers because it is often
impossible to discern the locus-specific alleles
(Zhang, 2004).
1 Results
1.1 Microsatellite sequences
One hundred and twenty-eight positive clones were
sequenced, producing a total of 59 252 bp of DNA
sequences. Analysis with MISA identified 118
microsatellite-containing sequences, corresponding to
an enrichment efficiency of 97.5%. The 118
microsatellite-containing sequences harbored 406
microsatellites with di- (85.5%), tri- (4.2%), tetra-
(6.2%), penta- (0.7%), hexa- (1.7%), and hepata-