High cross-family transferability of microsatellite markers developed for the snow crab, Chionoecetes opilio (Fabricius, 1788)

Of the seven species in the genus Chionoecetes (family Oregoniidae), the snow crab Chionoecetes opilio (Fabricius, 1788) is one of the most important commercial crustacean species along with its relative, the red snow crab C. japonicus Rathbun, 1932. Despite restrictions allowing male-only capture and size limits, the capture of C. opilio is changing and management of its natural resources is required. Microsatellite markers for C. opilio that can be used in population and management studies were isolated using 454 pyrosequencing, a cost-effective and rapid method. Among 11 172 dinucleotide microsatellites, 64 loci containing more than nine repeats of either CA or AT were selected for primer synthesis, and 49 (76.6%) primer sets producing PCR products between 100-300 bp in length were selected as candidates. Following initial experiments with four individuals of C. opilio, 18 polymorphic loci and three monomorphic loci were selected as the final microsatellite markers for this study. In a cross-species transfer analysis of these markers using 11 crab species belonging to the families Oregoniidae, Cheiragonidae and Portunidae in the order Brachyura, two loci, Co10-nfrdi and Co36-nfrdi, were amplified by PCR from all of the tested species, while the rest of the loci were amplified in at least one of the tested species. Among the 11 tested species, Portunus trituberculatus (Miers, 1876) of the family Portunidae showed the highest transferability. The average percentage of amplification was higher in the same genus followed by in the same family rather than in different genera or families.