DEVELOPMENT AND CROSS-SPECIES AMPLIFICATION OF GRASS PEA ESTDERIVED MARKERS

Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) deposited in the public domain are providing a cost-effective means of developing sequence based molecular markers. In this study, publicly available grass pea (Lathyrus sativus) EST sequences were used to develop 21 molecular markers for L. sativus (grass pea). Out of these, thirteen markers were polymorphic. Evaluation of the transferability of the newly developed markers to five other legume species resulted in transferability percentage of 95.23% in L. cicera, 61.9% in field pea, 52.38% in faba bean, 38.1% in chickpea, and 33.33% in lentil. The markers developed will be useful for genetic studies in grass pea and other legume species.