Development and validation of Acacia koa and A. koaia nuclear SSRs using Illumina sequencing

Koa (Acacia koa) and sub-species koaia (A. koaia) are two of more than 1,200 species from the genus Acacia within the Leguminosae (also designated Fabaceae) family. In the past, koa and koaia forests were found throughout the Hawaiian archipelago but populations have dramatically decreased. Comprehensive analyses of simple sequence repeats (SSRs) have not been published previously. Here we use genome sequencing and bioinformatics tools to report development of 100,000+ nuclear SSR (nuSSR) markers for use in koa and koaia genome studies with transcriptome SSR information was inclu­ded for comparison. Over 10,000 high-value SSRs (40-60 % GC content) were isolated with 3,600+ further validated by ePCR. SSRs generated in this work can assist current efforts to sustai­nably increase in koa and koaia populations.