Discrimination of tobacco cultivars using SCAR and RAPD markers

Tobacco genetic purity is crucial to maintain the quality of cigarette products in the tobacco industry. To reduce the difficulties in the discrimination of large number of tobacco cultivars in production practice, we developed a two-step identification strategy by using SCAR and RAPD markers. A total of 53 tobacco cultivars were examined in the study. Initially, all the selected cultivars were divided into four groups, each group consisted of seven to seventeen tobacco cultivars based on difference in phenotypes identified by the SCAR markers S4 and S8. Later, in each group, each tobacco cultivar was identified using RAPD fingerprinting by using one to four polymorphic primers, which were selected from 200 random primers. The results showed that all 53 tobacco cultivars could be effectively distinguished by using only two SCAR and seven RAPD markers. The two-step fingerprinting strategy could be used as a convenient and cost-effective tool to discriminate large numbers of tobacco cultivars for production planning in the tobacco industry.