Thirty-four Musa (Musaceae) expressed sequence tag-derived microsatellite markers transferred to Musella lasiocarpa.

We assembled 31,308 publicly available Musa EST sequences into 21,129 unigenes; 4944 of them contained 5416 SSR motifs. In all, 238 unigenes flanking SSRs were randomly selected for primer design and then tested for amplification in Musella lasiocarpa. Seventy-eight primer pairs were found to be transferable to this species, and 49 displayed polymorphism. A set of 34 polymorphic SSR markers was analyzed in 24 individuals from four wild M. lasiocarpa populations. The mean number of alleles per locus was 3.0, ranging from 2 to 7. The observed and expected heterozygosities per marker ranged from 0.087 to 0.875 (mean 0.503) and from 0.294 to 0.788 (mean 0.544), respectively. These markers will be of practical use for genetic diversity and quantitative trait loci analysis of M. lasiocarpa.