Analysis of the polymorphism of expressed sequence tag-Simple sequence repeat in quail

Aiming at accelerating the application of molecular markers in the genetic improvement of quails, six EST-SSR markers were successfully developed using a bioinformatics method. Polymorphisms of three quail populations (Chinese yellow, China black and Korean quail) were detected. The results showed that there were 2-6 alleles in six EST-SSR markers. The mean polymorphism information contents of Chinese yellow, China blackand Korean quail were 0.5451, 0.4962 and 0.4937, respectively. The average heterozygosity values were 0.6134, 0.5759 and 0.5613. Among the six EST-SSR markers, three were highly polymorphicand the others were moderately polymorphic. The newly-developed six EST-SSR markers may be used to determine the genetic diversity of quails. The six EST-SSR markers identified were related to carbohydrate metabolism and melanin synthesis, but the specific mechanisms need to be further analyzed.