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Development of Molecular linkage map

Coffee, being the beverage of tremendous economic importance, continuous efforts to develop better genotypes is the need of the day. Despite of extreemly limited variation in the arabica gene pool, I have identified a reasonable number of polymorphic microsatellite markers after a tedious and careful screening. The identified markers are being screened against 3 sets of mapping population for the purpose of constructing linkage map. It is predicted to be the first microsatellite based arabica map in the world.

This work is currently being done at University of Trieste.

Could it be a milestone?

This is one of the challenging area. several lab across the globe have attempted developing arabica map but constrained due to the extreemly limited variation among the arabica gene pool.

The development of microsatellites started with screening of two libraries; one enriched for TG, repeats, derived from an arabica variety Caturra, the other enriched in dinucleotide and in trinucleotide repeats, derived from an arabica variety Bourbon Tekisic. Until now, we have successfully developed a total of 159 C. arabica specific microsatellite markers and validated across different varieties. These markers were screened for parental polymorphism in 5 different crosses and a total of 17 polymorphic loci were identified so far, despite of limited genetic variation among arabica varieties. The selected polymorphic markers are being analysed in the segregating population for constructing map. It is predicted to be the first microsatellite based arabica map in the world.

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