Research on specific molecular markers for the identification of Nicotiana plants

Inhalt:
Identifying whether seizures of illegal operations containing tobacco raw materials is the crucial verdict involved in the court cases. However, the current method of determine is scientifically inadequate and less efficient. This study established Nicotiana-specific molecular markers using the sequence data of genes related to the nicotine metabolism pathway and the genomic data of Solanaceae (including unpublished tobacco genomic data) in the public database. The Nicotiana-specific markers were obtained by experimentally verifying 17 non-tobacco materials and 91 tobacco materials belonging to 11 sections of 3 sub-genus. Finally, 2 pairs of stable, reliable and Nicotiana-specific primers were selected out from 209 newly developed markers. The results of the study showed that the 2 selected primers could amplify the target length fragments in 91 Nicotiana materials, without any PCR product amplification in 17 non-Nicotiana materials. The method was simple and easy to operate, so it could be applied to the authenticity determination of tobacco materials in the anti-counterfeiting and anti-smuggling task of the tobacco industry.