Td-DAMD-PCR assays for fingerprinting of commercial carnations

Dianthus L. is one of the highly valued plant species in the family Caryophyllaceae. More than 30,000 cultivars of commercial carnations have been recorded and there is a need for an effective and cheap method to reveal their genetic diversity and identify the cultivars. To the best of our knowledge this is the first report of implementation of the touchdown direct amplification of minisatelliteregion DNA polymerase chain reaction (Td-DAMD-PCR) technique in the genus Dianthus. A total of 12 core minisatellite primers empirically selected from 22 primers were used in fingerprinting and phylogenetic studies of some commercial carnation cultivars. Analysis revealed that commercial carnations have a wide genetic base and they were probably obtained using inter-crosses between and among different species of the genus Dianthus. A total of 17 DNA markers were variety specific and most of the remaining markers obtained in the present study were useful in fingerprinting of the commercial varieties studied. Commercial varieties were differentiated in spray and standard carnation groups in a principal coordinate analysis and a Bayesian 50% majority-rule consensus tree. Td- DAMD-PCR markers reported in this study could be very useful in species identification, determination of genetic relationships, and phylogenetic studies of species of Dianthus.