Isolation and Characterization of 88 Polymorphic Microsatellite Markers in Kentucky Bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.)

Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.) is an important facultative apomictic temperate perennial grass species used for both forage and cultivated turf. Through apomixis, this species is able to propagate diverse and odd ploidy levels, resulting in many genetically distinct phenotypes. A wide range of diverse cultivars and accessions of kentucky bluegrass have been previously characterized based on common turf performance or morphological characteristics as well as by random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers. Although previous characterization efforts have provided valuable information, the use of both morphological characteristics and RAPD markers for genetic diversity analysis has limitations. In the current report, we developed and characterized 88 novel microsatellite markers for kentucky bluegrass. Polymorphism for each marker was assessed in 265 kentucky bluegrass cultivars, experimental selections, collections, and hybrids. The number of alleles for individual microsatellites ranged from four to 81 with an average of 38.3 alleles per simple sequence repeat. These polymorphic microsatellite markers would be useful tools for investigating genetic diversity, creation of genetic linkage maps, assessment of levels of apomixis in cultivars and experimental varieties, and identification of aberrant progeny in apomictic kentucky bluegrass breeding programs.