To further develop EST-SSR marker in rubber tree, we assembled the sequences downloaded from NCBI and Malaysia EST databases of rubber tree. By analyzing the assembled 3 733 unigenes, we identified 566 potential SSR sites in this study. That is to say, there was one EST-SSR in every 3.96 kb. The di-nu-cleotide repeat was the most abundant type, fol owed by tri-, hexa-, tetra- and pen-ta-nucleotide repeat. The most common number of repeat units was 5, fol owed by more than 12, 6 and 7. Of 51 SSR motifs identified in this study, di-, tri-, tetra-, penta- and hexa-nucleotide repeats were 6, 26, 5, 3 and 11 types, respectively. The GA/CT di-nucleotide repeat was the most abundant motif, fol owed by TC/AG, AT/TA, CTT/GAA, TTC/AAG and TCT/AGA. In total, 158 new EST-SSRs were developed and amplified with the DNA of RRIM600 as a template. The results showed that the PCR products of 99 EST-SSRs generated clear amplifying bands. The EST-SSR markers developed in this study further enrich the number of molecular marker in rubber tree, and they wil be widely applied in DNA fingerprinting, genetic diversity, marker-assisted selection and genetic mapping, etc.
