Abstract

A set of expressed sequence tag-simple sequence repeat (EST-SSR) markers for the genus Mytilus was developed through bioinformatic mining of the GenBank public database. A total of 33 782 EST sequences from GenBank were downloaded and screened for di-, tri- and tetranucleotide, with 1274 EST containing SSR markers. Nine microsatellite markers were characterized in Mytilus californianus with a number of alleles per locus ranging from two to six, and total observed and expected heterozygosities ranging from 0.490 to 0.730 and from 0.510 to 0.860 respectively. Cross-species amplification was achieved in several other species, confirming the usefulness of these markers in Mytilus genetics. © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.