Development of 17 polymorphic microsatellite loci from Jeju striped field mouse, Apodemus agrarius chejuensis (Rodentia: Muridae), by 454 pyrosequencing

Abstract

Background: The striped field mouse, Apodemus agrarius, is the most common mammal in Korea. Although microsatellite loci for the species have been identified from populations in southwestern China, amplification of those markers for Korean populations have been unsuccessful. The complicated taxonomy of Korean striped field mouse including populations on Jeju Island (A. a chejuensis) necessitates identification of additional molecular markers.

Findings: We applied 454 pyrosequencing systems to develop a suite of microsatellite markers. Muscle tissue was harvested and sequenced from 30 Jeju striped field mouse specimens which yielded 12,165 reads with a mean length per read of 287 bp. From these reads, we identified 17 microsatellite loci for A. a. chejuensis and tested these new markers against samples of both A. a chejuensis and A. a coreae, the mainland taxon. All 17 loci were amplified successfully for both taxa. Of the total 17 loci, one locus failed to amplify for a population on Heuksan Island. The cross-species transferability was also tested with the allied taxon, A. peninsulae and confirmed successful for 12 loci.

Conclusions: These newly developed markers will benefit studies of genetic structure, evolution, and resolving taxonomic problems of striped field mice and allied taxa in Korea.

Keywords: Apodemus agrarius chejuensis, Microsatellites, South Korea, Jeju Island, Pyrosequencing.

Fig. 1

A pie chart summarizing AMOVA results. Genetic variance was hierarchically partitioned into two levels: 1) among populations (12% of total genetic variance) and 2) within each population (88% of total genetic variance)

Fig. 2

PCoA plot for 30 individual genotypes of A. agrarius chejuensis from two populations. The first two variance components PC1 and PC2 were plotted. BHs are samples from Beophwan-dong and YDs are from Yongdu-dong