California Sea Grant College Program

Nine tetramer [GATA]n microsatellite systems were developed for use in the white sturgeon, Acipenser transmontanus. We report inheritance patterns for these nine systems, which range from one possible disornic system to tetrasomy and octosomy, with some systems containing null alleles. Due to the complex modes of inheritance underlying these systems and the highly duplicated nature of the genome, we propose each allele be scored as its own dominant marker, similar to AFLPs or RAPDs. The utility of this method is validated by the observation that individual alleles within a microsatellite system generally fit the expectation for independent transmission and fit the expected transmission frequency for single copy nuclear markers.