Little is known about the evolutionary relationships among Linum
species, basically because of the lack of transferable molecular
markers. Currently, expressed sequence tags available in public
databases provide an opportunity for the rapid and inexpensive
development of simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers in wild flax
species. In this regard, fifty expressed sequence tag-derived
microsatellite markers (EST-SSRs) were evaluated for polymorphism and
transferability in 50 Linum usitatissimum cultivars/accessions and 11
Linum species. Among them 23 EST-SSRs were polymorphic in L.
usitatissimum, while 2-4 alleles were detected (average 2.26 per
locus). The polymorphism information content value ranged from 0.08 to
0.55 (average 0.38). Forty one genic markers (95.3%) produced strong
amplicons in at least two of the 11 Linum species. The percentage of
cross amplification ranged from 34.1% to 92.7% in L. tauricum and L.
bienne, respectively. Moreover, the rate of transferability was
associated positively with the botanical section. Our results suggest
that the high degree of EST-SSRs transferability to Linum species can
be a useful enhancement of the current database of SSR markers for
future genetic and evolutionary studies