Abstract：The development of expressed sequence tags(ESTs) from moso bamboo has provided a useful source for mining novel simple sequence repeat(SSR) markers,which would be used for the taxonomy of bamboo. Four hundred and eight simple sequence repeats(SSR)were obtained by screening 3 087 EST sequences of moso bamboo(Phyllostachys pubescens). Among the SSR-ESTs, trinucleotides(49.75%) were most abundant, followed by dinucleotides(43.14%), penta-nucleotide(4.41%), tetra-nucleotide(1.72%) and hexa- nucleotide (0.98%). Among the identified motif types, GAG/CTC and AG motifs had the highest frequencies, accounting for 18.72% and 71.02% respectively. Based on the SSR-ESTs sequences, 25 EST-SSR primer pairs were designed for detection of the amplification efficiency, polymorphism and transferability in 12 bamboo speices, 18 primer pairs of which could generate stable and clear bands, including 16 primer pairs with polymorphisms which accounted for 64% of designed primers. Bands ranged mainly from 100 bp to 500 bp. Phylogenetic analysis showed that 12 species of bamboo were divided into two groups: Clump bamboos and monpodial bamboos, conforming to the traditional taxonomy results. The results showed that the EST-SSR markers from Moso bamboo ESTs are convenient and practicable and are of great value in evaluation of bamboo genetic diversity.
