Sixteen EST-linked microsatellite markers in Günther's walking catfish, Clarias macrocephalus.

Twenty-seven new microsatellite sequences were identified by screening 2029 expressed sequence tags from Günther's walking catfish, Clarias macrocephalus. Sixteen loci were polymorphic with the number of alleles ranging from two to 16 per locus and the observed and expected heterozygosities ranging from 0.4667 to 0.9333 and from 0.427 to 0.8819 per locus, respectively. Cross-species amplifications of all 16 primer pairs were tested in four other species of catfish including Clarias gariepinus, Pangasius hypophthalmus, Pangasius larnaudii and Pangasianodon gigas. Eleven loci were found to amplify in other species, with the number of polymorphic loci ranging from one in P. larnaudii to nine in C. gariepinus.