Development and Characterization of Microsatellite Markers Based on the Chloroplast Genome of Tree Peony

Tree peony (Paeonia suffruticosa Andr.) is a famous ornamental and medicinal flowering species. However, few high-efficiency chloroplast microsatellite markers have been developed for it to be employed in taxonomic identifications and evaluation of germplasm resources to date. In the present study, a total of 139 cpSSR loci were identified across eleven tree peony plastomes. Dinucleotide repeat SSRs (97.12%) were most abundantly repeated for the AT motif (58.27%), followed by the TA motif (30.94%) and the TC motif (7.91%). Twenty-one primer pairs were developed, and amplification tests were conducted for nine tree peony individuals. Furthermore, 19 cpSSR markers were amplified on 60 tree peony accessions by a capillary electrophoresis test. Of 19 cpSSR markers, 12 showed polymorphism with different alleles ranging from 1.333 to 3.000. The Shannon’s information index and polymorphism information content values ranged from 0.038 to 0.887 (mean 0.432) and 0.032 to 0.589 (mean 0.268), respectively. The diversity levels for twelve loci ranged from 0.016 (at loci cpSSR-8 and cpSSR-26) to 0.543 (at locus cpSSR-15), averaging 0.268 for all loci. A total of 14 haplotypes (23.33%) were detected in the three populations. The haplotypic richness ranged from 0.949 to 1.751, with a mean of 1.233 per population. The genetic relationship suggested by the neighbor-joining-based dendrogram divided the genotypes into two clusters. The Jiangnan population was allotted to Cluster II, and the other two populations were distributed into both branches. These newly developed cpSSRs can be utilized for future breeding programs, population genetics investigations, unraveling the genetic relationships between related species, and germplasm management.