DNA PROFILING TECHNIQUES FOR PLANT VARIETY IDENTIFICATION

The unambiguous identification of plant varieties is important in many areas of agriculture and plant biology research. New techniques based on DNA profiling provide novel approaches to varietal identification which offer advantages over traditional morphological comparisons. These advantages include great potential resolving power, data that can be analysed objectively, testing at all stages of development, and cost effectiveness. In this review, the advantages of recently introduced polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based methods are compared with the well-established restriction fragment length polymorphism technique. Two approaches to PCR-based DNA profiling (random amplification of polymorphic DNA, sequence-tagged sites analysis) are compared and contrasted, and statistical methods for the analysis of data are described. The potential use of these techniques for Plant Breeders Rights registration in Australia is outlined.