Identification of chrysanthemum cultivars and stability of DNA fingerprint patterns.

Several techniques of DNA analysis were applied to identify chrysanthemum cultivars. Unrelated cultivars could be distinguished by using RAPDs (random amplified polymorphic DNAs), inter-SSR (simple sequence repeat) PCR (polymerase chain reaction), hybridization-based DNA fingerprinting, as well as RFLPs (restriction fragment length polymorphisms). Cultivars with different flower colours and belonging to one family, i.e. vegetatively derived from 1 cultivar, appeared to have the same DNA fragment patterns, whichever technique was applied. The absence of polymorphisms between different accessions of the same cultivar indicated a high stability of the observed patterns.