Shotgun sequencing data and SSR mining data of aibika (Abelmoschus manihot, Malvaceae)

Aibika (<i>Abelmoschus manihot</i>) is a tropical leafy vegetable with great potential in the prevention of malnutrition. Its high fibre and micronutrient content makes it a valuable complement to staple foods such as rice and starchy crops consumed in South Asia and the Pacific. The present study is the first to report the development of a set of 21 nuclear single sequence repeat (SSR) markers of <i>A. manihot</i> from genomic sequence data obtained using NGS technology. The DNA library was prepared from a pool of four aibika accessions and sequenced using an Illumina MiSeq system. A total of 1,295,217 pair-end reads were generated. Raw data are available in the European Nucleotide Archive (accession number PRJEB88210). The sequences were assembled using the ABySS software. In total 651,320 contigs were generated. Using MISA Perl script and Primer3 software, we identified 8014 SSR motifs, of which 4637 had a suitable primer design. The contigs were blasted with NCBI-BLAST on okra reference genome. After selection based on motif type, repeat length, amplicon size and occurrence blast, we retained 91 candidate SSR loci, which were tested on 23 aibika accessions. Finally, we validated 21 high quality SSR loci by genotyping 45 accessions from three Pacific countries. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 3 to 21 with an average of 7.81 alleles/locus. The 21 selected SSRs were found to be useful in discriminating between accessions and revealing the diversity structure of <i>A. manihot</i>. They will help to optimize genebanks management and breeding programmes, and guide future collection activities.