Abstract: A total of 131 960 unigenes（90.80 Mb）were obtained by using transcriptome sequenceing analysis in Cucurbita maxima，and 12 557 simple sequence repeat（SSR）loci（9.52%）with the frequency of 1/7.4 kb were then identified. Among all SSR loci，dinucleotide repeat was the main type（49.82%），followed by trinucleotide repeat motif（45.31%）. A total of 7 290 SSR primers were designed and 20 primers were selected randomly for PCR amplification using 30 pumpkin materials with different sources. Results showed that 14 primers could produce clear and reproductive bands，within which 11 SSR markers performed polymorphical bands. The pumpkin materials could be divided into five groups according to the UPGMA analysis. Results of this present study indicated that SSR markers with high frequency and various types could be acquired by transcriptome sequencing. The SSR markers obtained in the present study could be candidate markers for genetic diversity analysis and genetic mapping construction in Cucurbita maxima.

Key words: Cucurbita maxima, transcriptome, SSR, polymorphism, genetic diversity