Mining of EST-SSR markers in clam Meretrix meretrix larvae from 454 shotgun transcriptome.

A total of 2,970 EST-SSRs (2.38%) were identified by transcriptome sequencing of clam Meretrix meretrix (751,970 reads, ~310.82 Mbp), using 454 Genome Sequencer FLX next-generation sequencing platform. Dinucleotide SSR was the dominant repeat type (40.2%), followed by trinucleotide (37.8%), tetranuleotide (12.0%) and pentanucleotide (2.0%) SSR. The dominant repeat motif was AT (71.3%) in the dinucleotide SSR type and AAC (45.6%) in the trinucleotide SSR type. Nearly 79% of all microsatellites had flanking sequences suitable for PCR primer design. Half of PAL were found to be polymorphic in a subset of 40 primer pairs randomly selected. Specifically, the density of dinucleotide, trinucleotide and tetranucleotide repeats showed significant variation among four development stages (trochophore, D-veliger, pediveliger and postlarva). The results suggested that dinucleotide, trinucleotide and tetranucleotide SSRs may play an important role in contributing to the different expression profiles in larval stages.