A highly innovative technology that identifies plant species from short or even damaged DNA fragments

Introduction

The Laboratory for Alpine Ecology (UJF, CNRS) led by Pierre Taberlet has developed an innovative method to identify plant products. The identification process works by analysing a short DNA sequence. This very informative primer identifies length and sequence variations specific to the plant species. The technology is highly innovative in that it uses universal primers to amplify a very short but highly informative DNA fragment in order to identify plant species existing in a substrate, even if this substrate is transformed or damaged.