Development of Genomic Simple Sequence Repeat Markers and Variety Discrimination in Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge

Background: Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge, of the Lamiaceae family, is a medicinal plant. This study aimed to develop polymorphic simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers for analyzing the genetic diversity and distinguishing between varieties of S. miltiorrhiza.BRMethods and Results: Using whole genome resequencing data, 50 SSR markers were designed for S. miltiorrhiza. Of these, 41 polymorphic markers were selected and utilized to assess 44 S. miltiorrhiza accessions. A total of 346 alleles were detected (2 to 17 per locus, averaging 8.4). Major allele frequency ranged from 0.19 to 0.83 (average 0.47), observed heterozygosity ranged from 0 to 0.60 (average 0.22), and polymorphic information content ranged from 0.29 to 0.87 (average 0.64). Among the 41 SSR markers, 18 were effective for distinguishing varieties, particularly S. miltiorrhiza ‘Dasan’, ‘Gosan’, and