Rapid diagnostic PCR method for identification of the genera sarcocornia and salicornia

Abstract

Plants that belong to different genera sometimes may present close morphological similarity and cannot be distinguished phe notypically by non-specialists. The aim of this study was to develop a simple diagnostic PCR for the identification of plants of Sarcocornia and Salicornia and to test this new procedure to identify 82 samples of Sarcocornia neii from coastal and valleys of the Atacama region of Chile. Six primer pairs were designed from ETS sequences of the genera Sarcocornia and Salicornia and evaluated for the identification of both genera. Primers with a mismatch in the 3’ nucleotide indicate the site of the SNP. Four primer pairs (SALI2F-2R, SALI3F-4R, SARCO1F-1R and SARCO3F-3R) were selected to develop an efficient and simple diagnostic PCR for the identification of Sarcocornia and Salicornia. The results show that with this method is possible to identify Sarcocornia and Salicornia. This method may be useful as an approach for genetic traceability of conserved products (sea asparagus). This work provides an applicable and efficient method using only DNA, PCR and electrophoresis.