Preliminary Linkage Mapping of Tea Plants with RAPD and SSR Markers

Based on double pseudo-testcross theory, a population of 76 F1 clones derived from crossing between female parent ‘Kemsull’ and male parent ‘Houshun’ was used to construct the linkage map using RAPD and SSR markers. Totally 660 random primers with 10 nucleotides were screened and 44 was selected, 60 pairs of SSR primers were screened and 14 pairs were chosen. All 142 RAPD and 14 SSR markers amplified by selected primers weresorted out into two data sets obtained from each parent, then grouped by JoinMap 4.0 version. We constructed the ‘Kemsull’ map containing 77 RAPD markers and 5 pairs of SSR markers into 14 linkage groups (495.1 cM), and the ‘Houshun’map containing 81 RAPD markers and 7 SSR markers into 13 lingkage groups (431.5 cM) (n = 15 in tea). The map of ‘Houshun’ was consisted of the longest linkage group 4 (76.1 cM) with only 2 intervals and the shortest linkage group 2 (10.2 cM, excepted three zero cM linkage groups), with a mean length of 33.2 cM. The map of ‘Kemsull’ was consisted of the longest linkage group (76.1 cM) with 5 intervals and the shortest linkage group 6 (20.8 cM, excepted four zero cM linkage groups). Since maps were not saturated with RAPD and SSR markers, these preliminary linkage maps should be improved by adding other molecular markers.