In-silico identification and functional annotation of SSR-ESTs related to drought and herbivory in Camellia sinensis var assamica

Abstract

Expressed sequence tags of Camellia sinensis var assamica deposited in NCBI database were studied to find out the Simple Sequence Repeats from sequences related to drought and herbivory. SSR-ESTs are tightly linked to specific gene functions and can be used to screen markers of important agronomic traits. In the present study, 246 SSRs were detected in drought ESTs and 200 SSRs containing sequences were annotated. From herbivory ESTs, 145 SSRs were detected from112 SSR containing sequences. In our analysis, a common group of 20 SSR-ESTs were obtained which were present both in drought and herbivory ESTs. Fifty two SSR-EST sequences for herbivory and sixty five SSR-EST sequences for Drought were specifically observed with known gene functions. These SSR-ESTs can be targeted to screen germplasms and after validation can be exploited for use in marker-assisted breeding.