First SSR Map for Cultivated Groundnut Published

Cultivated peanut or groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is the fourth most important oilseed crop in the world, grown mainly in tropical, subtropical and warm temperate climates. The crop production in marginal environment of Africa and Asia is seriously challenged by several biotic and abiotic stress constraints. Molecular markers and genetic maps are the prerequisites for undertaking molecular breeding to combat such abiotic/biotic stress constraints. In case of groundnut, though several hundred molecular markers (such as microsatellite or simple sequence repeat/SSR markers) have been developed and genetic maps have been developed based on mapping populations derived from diploid Arachis species or synthetic tetraploids, not a single genetic was available until recently for cultivated groundnut.

A team of scientists from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in collaboration with colleagues from EMBRAPA/ Catholic University in Brazil, University of Georgia and Tuskegee University in USA has developed the first SSR based genetic linkage map for cultivated groundnut. This map has a total of 135 SSR loci mapped onto 22 linkage groups. The team has demonstrated the utility of this genetic map for trait mapping in cultivated groundnut and comparative mapping in legumes.

Details about this map are available in the recent paper published as an Open Access in Theoretical and Applied Genetics at http://www.springerlink.com/content/10125wx862658886/fulltext.pdf  or from Rajeev Varshney (r.k.varshney@cgiar.org).