Background: There is very limited genetic knowledge in Prosopis africana, an important sub-Saharan multi-purpose tree species. Availability of highly polymorphic genetic markers would be helpful for future genetic work.
Findings: Leaf samples from 15 trees were used to develop simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. Size-selected fragments from genomic DNA were enriched for repeats and the library was analyzed on an Illumina MiSeq platform. Fourteen SSRs were selected and applied in two Burkinabe populations (40 adult trees each). The number of alleles varied from 4 to 20, evenness (effective number of alleles/observed number of alleles) averaged to 0.54 and unbiased heterozygosity ranged from 0.305 to 0.925 over all loci and populations. Null alleles were not detected.
Conclusions: Due to the high level of polymorphism and lack of null alleles the developed SSRs can be effectively employed in population genetic studies.
Keywords: African mesquite; Genetic characterization; Microsatellites.