Development, characterization and cross-species transferability of genomic SSR markers in berseem (Trifolium alexandrinum L.), an important multi-cut annual forage legume

Egyptian clover (Trifolium alexandrinum), a multi-cut forage legume, is widely grown as an annual feed crop. Genetic improvement in this legume is largely hampered due to limited availability of genomic resources. Hence, a genomic library enriched for GA/CT motif was constructed to develop SSR primers. As a result, 667 SSR primer pairs were developed and 111 were validated in T. alexandrinum cv. Wardan s-99-1. Among these, 45 primer pairs were used for the analysis of genetic diversity among 86 Trifolium accessions, resulting in 220 alleles with an average of 4.88 alleles per locus. Polymorphic information content for these markers ranged from 0.040 to 0.819 with an average of 0.445. The observed and expected heterozygosity for individual loci ranged from 0.39 to 0.89 and 0.368 to 0.80 with an average of 0.675 and 0.659, respectively. The markers exhibited varied levels of cross-species transferability ranging from 93.33 % across T. resupinatum to 40.0 % across T. balansae. Phylogenetic relationships were analyzed using the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic averages (UPGMA)-based dendrogram which was able to establish the uniqueness of each genotype and grouped them into two major clusters. To the best of our knowledge, the SSR markers reported here are among the first to be reported in this important yet neglected forage legume. They were assessed to be highly efficient and polymorphic and found to be useful for distinguishing the closely related genotypes of Trifolium. This large resource of SSR markers would therefore facilitate new avenues for T. alexandrinum genomics.