Development of 34 new microsatellite markers for the endangered Chinese sucker (Myxocyprinus asiaticus) using 454 sequencing

Chinese sucker (Myxocyprinus asiaticus) is an endangered fish species in China which is only distributed in Yangtze River basin. Here we isolated and characterized 34 polymorphic tri and tetra-nucleotide microsatellite loci in the genome of M. asiaticus using 454 sequencing. Of the 73 loci screened, 47 were amplified successfully and 34 were polymorphic. The genetic diversity in M. asiaticus Wanzhou population was moderate with the number of alleles per locus ranged from 2 to 8 (mean 3.97), and the observed and expected heterozygosities ranged from 0.08 to 1.000 (mean 0.50) and from 0.12 to 0.83 (mean 0.55), respectively. These polymorphic microsatellite markers should be useful for further studies of population structure, parentage analysis, and conservation management for this species.