Employment of a new strategy for identification of lemon (Citrus limon L.) cultivars using RAPD markers

Abstract

DNA markers are useful tools that have potential application in crop cultivar identification and fingerprinting besides others. A novel analysis approach called CID strategy was developed that can realize the utility of DNA marker in the separation of plant individuals much better, more efficiently, practical, and referable, in which a Cultivar-Identification-Diagram (CID) was constructed for fingerprinting. In this study, a total of 47 important lemon cultivars cultivated in China were successfully separated with random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) marker analysis. With the analysis using the CID strategy, they could be clearly separated by the fingerprints of 10 RAPD primers. The utilization of the CID of these 47 lemon cultivars was also verified by the identification of two randomly chosen groups of cultivars among the 47. This identification showed that some advantages in fewer primers were used, and all the cultivars could be separated by each other by the corresponding primers marked in the right position on the CID, and this lemon CID could provide the information to separate any lemon cultivars of these 47 which may be of help to the lemon industry in China. Key words: Lemon cultivar, identification, cultivar-identification-diagram strategy.