author(s)
Niranjan Kumar, Immanual Gilwax Prabhu, Manjappa, Ajit Kumar Sinha and Alok Sahay

abstract
Antheraea mylitta is a tropical tasar-silk producing insect distributed across India. Even though, economically important traits of tasar silkworm are highly influenced by ecosystem, its genotype also plays a vital role in the expression of high yield traits. Development of DNA based molecular marker for the selection of highly productive lines are imperative to improve the production of tasar silk. The present study was intended to develop Sequence-Characterized Amplified Region (SCAR) markers from the improved Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) fragments for the selection of high shell weight line. High shell weight (> 2g) and low shell weight (< 1g) lines were selected. Genomic DNA from both the groups were analysed for polymorphism using 40 decamer RAPD primers. Primers OPW9, OPA11 and OPJ18 generated the polymorphic fragment at the size of 630, 620 and 220 bp respectively to distinguish high and low shell weight groups. The polymorphic bands were cloned, sequenced and converted into stable multiplex SCAR markers HSWP1, HSWP2 and HSWP3. Among three, HSWP1 and HSWP2 were highly specific to high shell weight line. This study developed stable multiplex SCAR markers for the precise selection of high shell weight bearing tropical tasar silkworm to enhance the productivity of tasar silk.