Plant & Animal Genomes XVIII Conference

January 9-13, 2010
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Development Of A Molecular Linkage Map Of Pearl Millet Integrating DArT And SSR Markers

Senthilvel S¹ , Nepolean T¹ , Supriya A^1,2 , Eshwar K¹ , Rajaram V^1,3 , Sushil Kumar^1,4 , Tom Hash¹ , Andrzej Kilian⁵ , Ram C Yadav² , Laksmi M Narasu³ , Govind Singh⁴

¹  International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh 502 324, India

²  Department of Biotechnology, College of Basic Sciences and Humanities, Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, Haryana 125 004, India

³  Centre for Biotechnology, IST, JNTUH, Kukatpally, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh 500 085, India

⁴  Department of Biotechnology, Rajasthan Agricultural University, Bikaner, Rajasthan 334 006, India

⁵  Diversity Arrays Technology Pty Ltd, 1 Wilf Crane Crescent, Yarralumla, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia

Pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Brown] is an important component of food security in the semi-arid tropics and assuming greater significance in the context of changing climate and increased demand for highly nutritious food and feed. Molecular tools have been developed and applied in pearl millet on a limited scale. However, the existing tool kit needs to be strengthened further for its routine use in applied breeding programmes. Here we report enrichment of the molecular linkage map of pearl millet by exploiting low-cost and high-throughput Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT) markers. Three existing RIL populations were genotyped using an array of circa 6900 DArT clones developed by PstI/BanII complexity reduction. The number of polymorphic markers scored was 277, 259 and 256 in RIL populations based on crosses ICMB 841-P3 × 863B-P2, H 77/833-2 × PRLT 2/89-33 and 81B-P6 × ICMP 451-P8, respectively. These data were integrated with SSR marker data (117 in ICMB 841-P3 × 863B-P2; 62 in H 77/833-2 × PRLT 2/89-33; and 70 in 81B-P6 × ICMP 451-P8) and individual genetic maps with circa 300 marker loci were constructed. Over 200 markers were mapped in more than one population and the mapping positions of these markers were consistent across maps. Among these, 32 markers representing all 7 linkage groups of pearl millet were mapped in all three populations permitting the development of a well-saturated consensus linkage map of DArT and SSR markers in pearl millet.