Isolation and characterization of twenty polymorphic microsatellites for Hemibarbus labeo (Cyprinidae)

Hemibarbus labeo is a valuable freshwater fish species distributed in the Heilongjiang River basin in China. Wild resources have declined sharply in recent years because of overfishing and pollution. Herein, twenty polymorphic microsatellites were isolated from an enriched genomic library in H. labeo for genetic conservation. These markers were characterized in 27 wild and 48 cultured individuals. The number of alleles per locus ranged from two to ten, with an average of 5.200. The observed heterozygosity and the expected heterozygosity varied from 0.086 to 0.870 (mean = 0.538) and from 0.116 to 0.861 (mean = 0.5441), respectively. Three and two loci significantly deviated from Hard–Weinberg equilibrium in wild and cultured individuals, respectively. Three pairwise comparisons of six loci showed significant genotypic linkage disequilibrium in cultured individuals. These polymorphic markers represent a powerful tool to study population genetic diversity, genetic conservation and breeding systems in H. labeo.