Background: Adenophora triphylla var. japonica (Regel) H. Hara shows vegetative growth with radical leaves during the first year and shows reproductive growth with cauline leaves and bolting during the second year. In addition, the shape of the plant varies within the same species. For this reason, there are limitations to classifying the species by visual examination. However, there is not sufficient genetic information or molecular tools to analyze the genetic diversity of the plant.
Methods and Results: Approximately 34.59 Gbp of raw data containing 342,487,502 reads was obtained from next generation sequencing (NGS) and these reads were assembled into 357,211 scaffolds. A total of 84,106 simple sequence repeat (SSR) regions were identified and 14,133 primer sets were designed. From the designed primer sets, 95 were randomly selected and were applied to the genomic DNA which was extracted from five plants and pooled. Thirty-nine primer sets showing more than two bands were finally selected as SSR markers, and were used for the genetic relationship analysis.
Conclusions: The 39 novel SSR markers developed in this study could be used for the genetic diversity analysis, variety identification, new variety development and molecular breeding of A. triphylla.