Constructing DNA fingerprinting of Hemarthria cultivars using EST-SSR and SCoT markers

DNA fingerprinting of known cultivars may provide much-needed data to assist with the identification of such cultivars. From 86 pairs of expressed sequence tag SSRs (EST-SSR) and 45 start-codon targeted polymorphism (SCoT) primers, eight pairs of EST-SSR primers and seven SCoT primers were chosen to construct the DNA fingerprinting of six Hemarthria cultivars in this study. Using genomic DNA from six cultivars, a total of eight pairs of EST-SSR primers were able to amplify 193 bands, producing an average of 24.1 bands per primer pair. The percentage of polymorphic bands (PPB) was 83.4 %, and the polymorphism information content (PIC) ranged from 0.480 to 0.695, with an average of 0.602. A total of seven SCoT primers amplified 105 bands with an average of 15 bands per sample. The PPB was 84.8 %, and the PIC ranged from 0.471 to 0.758, with an average of 0.612. The unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic mean dendrogram from EST-SSR and SCoT markers grouped the six Hemarthria cultivars into two major groups of the same. These clusters are in accordance with their known species and origin. Our results indicate a rich genetic diversity in these six Hemarthria cultivars. The six cultivars we assayed could be easily identified using these eight pairs of EST-SSR and seven pairs of SCoT primers.