Genetic Differentiation Among Populations of Octopus minor Based on Simple Sequence Repeats Mined from Transcriptome Data

Octopus minor (Sasaki 1920) is an important commercial cephalopod species in China. This species has declined sharply in recent years. Hence, genetic studies of O. minor are imperative to exploit and manage the wild resource. In this study, 46192 microsatellite loci were discovered in 70174 unigenes from the transcriptomic data. Among all of the simple sequence repeat (SSR) unit categories, di-nucleotide and tri-nucleotide SSRs accounted for 45.26% and 14.49%, respectively. A total of 108 SSRs were tested, of which 21 were neutral and polymorphic. Seven SSRs were selected for genetics analyses of the O. minor populations in the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea, and the southwest coast of the Taiwan Strait region. Significant pairwise F-st values were detected among the samples. The UPGMA tree based on genetic distances suggested that the sampling locations could be arranged in three clusters. These markers are evidence that the populations in this region may be structured, with samples from Penghu differing remarkably from those in northern China. The present study characterized genetic markers for population assessment, management, and conservation of O. minor.

Automated summary

This study discovered microsatellite loci in O. minor, providing genetic markers for population assessment, management, and conservation of this species.