Construction Of AFLP-based Genetic Linkage Map Of Sea Cucumber (Apostichopus Japonicus)

Sea cucumber (Apostichopus japonicus) is a common benthic organism of coastal sea habitats of East Asia, including China, Japan, Korea and Far Eastern Russia. Sea cucumber is a kind of important food and medicine resources in China. Sea cucumber aquaculture has been developing quickly since 1990s. In 2008 the production of Sea cucumber is more than 100000 tones in China. The genetic research of A. japonicus is necessary to achieve large-scale aquaculture success.Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) linkage maps of sea cucumber (Apostichopus japonicus) were constructed using an intraspecific F1 cross family and a two-way pseudotestcross strategy.23 selective amplification primer combinations produced 1102 AFLP markers. In these AFLP markers,601 markers are polymorphic. Polymorphic rate is 54.5%. Each primer combination produced 13.6 polymorphic markers on average.313 markers are polymorphic in either of the parents and segregated as 1:1 ratio in the progeny. Linkage data were analyzed with the program Join-Map 3.0.265 polymorphic markers were used in linkage analysis. The female map contained 102 markers in 22 linkage groups, covering 967 cM in total length, with an average marker spacing of 12.09 cM. The male map contained 92 markers in 23 linkage groups, covering 868 cM in total length, with an average marker spacing of 12.58 cM. The coverage of the map was calculated as 68.5% for the female and 66.23% for the male.