Development of microsatellite markers in finger millet

In the present study, for the first time an attempt was made to isolate microsatellites in finger millet using pre-cloning enrichment (selective hybridization) strategy which resulted in isolation of very good number of micro satellites (323).While developing the microsatellite-enriched library for finger millet, more than 2200 colonies were screened, and 1021 recombinant clones ranging from 500-1000bp were selected for further sequencing. Sequence analysis revealed that only 645 clones (63%) contained microsatellite motif regions. Monorepeats C and T were abundant, whereas, AG and CT class of dinucleotide repeats accounted about 21% and 30% respectively. Apart from the abundant, mono, di-nucleotide and tri repeats, about 58 tetranucleotide and 62 penta repeats were also isolated.