Abstract：Seven hundred and ninety one microsatellites(SSRs) were isolated from 7055 Panax ginseng expressed sequence tags(ESTs). According to primer design criteria, sixty-eight primer pairs for EST-SSR were designed. Under an appropriate PCR reaction system, all EST-SSR primer pairs were screened against genomic DNA of ji’anchangbo and fusong’ermaya from panax ginseng respectively, and forty-three of sixty-eight EST-SSR primer pairs resulted in PCR products. Then all forty-three EST-SSR primer pairs available were tested on nine panax ginseng varieties, two panax quinquefolius varieties and two acanthopanax senticosus varieties for polymorphisms, and twenty-six EST-SSR primer pairs were polymorphic, accounting for 60.47% of primer pairs amplified, accounting for 38.23% of total primer pairs designed. These results showed that it is an effective and feasible approach to develop EST-SSR markers in accordance with ESTs in panax ginseng.
