Isolation and characterization of novel polymorphic microsatellite loci in Atrina vexillum Born (Pinnidae).

The pen shell, Atrina vexillum Born, is an edible shellfish that is widely consumed in the Asia-Pacific region. In this study, 11 polymorphic microsatellite loci were isolated from A. vexillum, and 30 wild individuals were used to evaluate the degree of polymorphism of these markers. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 3 to 8. The polymorphism information content varied from 0.199 to 0.831. The observed and expected heterozygosities were 0.1000-0.8667 and 0.1244-0.8356, respectively. Two loci deviated significantly from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) after a Bonferroni correction, while the other nine loci were at HWE. These microsatellite loci will be useful in further studies on population genetic analyses, and will provide important genetic data for the conservation and recovery of A. vexillum.