Development of 10 novel polymorphic microsatellite markers for the Indo-Pacific horned starfish, Protoreaster nodosus.

Ten novel polymorphic nuclear microsatellite simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers were isolated from an Indo-Pacific horned starfish, Protoreaster nodosus. The isolated SSR markers provided polymorphisms of 2-9 alleles per locus in three populations obtained from Indonesia and the Philippines. The expected and observed heterozygosities ranged from 0.049 to 0.691 and from 0.050 to 0.800, respectively. Pairwise FST values among three populations ranged from 0.018 to 0.050 (global FST=0.031). All P. nodosus individuals collected from three populations exhibited different genotypes for the ten identified SSR markers, indicating that P. nodosus reproduces sexually. Then the developed SSR markers will be useful for studying the population and conservation genetics of P. nodosus.