In order to saturate a sunflower genetic map and facilitate
marker-assisted selection (MAS) breeding for stress response, it is
necessary to enhance map saturation with molecular markers localized in
linkage groups associated to genomic regions involved in these traits.
This work describes the identification and characterization of 1,134
simple sequence repeat (SSR) containing expressed sequence tags (EST)
from unigenes available databases. Twelve of these functional markers
as well as 41 public SSR markers were successfully localized in linkage
groups, thus contributing to the saturation of specific regions on a
reference genetic-linkage-map derived from recombinant inbred lines
(RIL) mapping population from the cross between PAC2 x RHA266 lines.
The enriched map includes 547 markers (231 SSR, 9 EST-SSR, 3
insertions/deletions (InDel) and 304 amplified fragment length
polymorphisms (AFLP) distributed in 17 linkage groups (LG), spanning
genetic size to 1,942.3 cM and improving its mean density to 3.6 cM per
locus. As consequence, no gaps longer than 13.2 cM remain uncovered
throughout the entire map, which increases the feasibility of detecting
genes or traits of agronomic importance in sunflower