Efficient Identification Techniques for 61 Oil Tea (Camellia Oleifera Abel) Cultivars Using the MCID Strategy and DNA...

It is crucial to identify Camellia oleifera Abel [Oil tea (Ot)] germplasm materials and cultivars for evaluating germplasm resources and assessing mechanisms for protecting Ot varieties. This study employed an optimized RAPD technique by increasing the RAPD primer length and screening the PCR annealing temperature, which identified 61 Ot cultivars from various regions. Furthermore, a MCID was developed to design efficient RAPD markers for cultivar identification. From 80 RAPD arbitrary 11-nt primers, 10 primers producing clear polymorphic bands (PBs) were selected for PCR analysis of the 61 cultivars. Moreover, the MCID strategy was employed to manually distinguish 61 cultivars based on the PBs observed in DNA fingerprints from the 10 primers, which generated the Ot cultivar identification diagram (Ot-CID). This Ot-CID indicated each cultivar individually, utilizing PBs for cultivar identification, with the appropriate primers accurately positioned on the Ot-CID. The MCID strategy provides a simple and practical approach for plant identification using DNA markers. Furthermore, this approach provides a practical and efficient method for cultivar identification. The resulting Ot-CID of 61 Ot cultivars effectively distinguished Ot variants using RAPD markers, thereby facilitating cultivar differentiation for cultivar-right protection and early seedling identification in the nursery industry.