Premise of the study: In Chinese bayberry (Myrica rubra), the available simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers are insufficient to meet the developing demand for genetic and molecular breeding research. This study was aimed at developing a large number of polymorphic expressed sequence tag (EST)-SSRs from the transcriptome of Chinese bayberry. •
Methods and results: Five hundred ninety-four compound EST-SSRs and 5557 noncompound ones were identified from 41239 unigene sequences generated from the transcriptome of M. rubra cv. Biqi. Using 10 Chinese bayberry cultivars, 109 polymorphic EST-SSRs were screened from 412 selected. In total, they generated 389 alleles, with a polymorphism ratio of 93.8%. In addition, it was observed that the polymorphism levels of compound EST-SSRs were somewhat lower than those of noncompound ones. •
Conclusions: The 109 polymorphic EST-SSRs developed from the Chinese bayberry transcriptome should greatly promote the development of genetic and molecular breeding studies in this as well as other Myricaceae species.