Cross transferability of barley nuclear SSRs to pearl millet genome provides new molecular tools for genetic analyses and marker assisted selection

Abstract Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.) is a valuable agronomic and industrial promising crop with high adaptation potentials considered as understudied species and is not attributed the interest it deserves. This investigation reports for the first time the transferability of barley nuclear microsatellites to pearl millet genome. This allowed the inference of the considerable potential of transferability of the nuclear simple sequence repeats (nSSRs) mapped from Hordeum vulgare L. genome to P. glaucum species. Out of the 42 tested SSRs, ten were found to be transferable, giving a transferability rate of 23.8%. These latter markers enabled the molecular characterization of the nine barley and nine pearl millet autochthonous landraces and revealed high levels of polymorphism and discriminatory powers. All the microsatellites were proved to be highly informative with an average polymorphic information content value of 0.74. The gene diversity index revealed a high level of diversity encompassed in both germplams with a mean H e value of 0.80. At the species level, comparable amounts of genetic variability were detected for H. vulgare and P. glaucum landraces. Furthermore, the set of ten transferable nSSRs exhibited high ability in revealing the genetic structure, differentiation and phylogenetic relationships among the studied germplasms. The new available nSSRs present an additional informative and discriminant set of molecular markers which will be useful in further genetic studies concerning the multipurpose species P. glaucum L. such as molecular fingerprinting, genetic purity assessment, genome mapping, marker-assisted breeding and conservation programs.