Development and optimization of sequence-tagged microsatellite site markers to detect genetic diversity within Colletotrichum capsici, a causal agent of chilli pepper anthracnose disease.

Genomic libraries enriched for microsatellites from Colletotrichum capsici, one of the major causal agents of anthracnose disease in chilli pepper (Capsicum spp.), were developed using a modified hybridization procedure. Twenty-seven robust primer pairs were designed from microsatellite flanking sequences and were characterized using 52 isolates from three countries India, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Highest gene diversity of 0.857 was observed at the CCSSR1 with up to 18 alleles among all the isolates whereas the differentiation ranged from 0.05 to 0.45. The sequence-tagged microsatellite site markers developed in this study will be useful for genetic analyses of C. capsici populations.