Journal:Broad-scale genetic diversity of Cannabis for forensic applications
| Full article title | Broad-scale genetic diversity of Cannabis for forensic applications |
|---|---|
| Journal | PLOS ONE |
| Author(s) | Dufresnes, Christophe; Jan, Catherine; Bienert, Friederike; Goudet, Jérôme; Fumagalli, Luca |
| Author affiliation(s) | University of Lausanne, Centre Universitaire Romand de Médecine Légale, |
| Primary contact | Email: Luca dot Fumagalli at unil dot ch |
| Editors | Scali, Monica |
| Year published | 2017 |
| Volume and issue | 121 |
| Page(s) | e0170522 |
| DOI | 10.1371/journal.pone.0170522 |
| ISSN | 1932-6203 |
| Distribution license | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International |
| Website | http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0170522 |
| Download | http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0170522&type=printable (PDF) |
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Abstract
Cannabis (hemp and marijuana) is an iconic yet controversial crop. On the one hand, it represents a growing market for pharmaceutical and agricultural sectors. On the other hand, plants synthesizing the psychoactive THC produce the most widespread illicit drug in the world. Yet, the difficulty to reliably distinguish between Cannabis varieties based on morphological or biochemical criteria impedes the development of promising industrial programs and hinders the fight against narcotrafficking. Genetics offers an appropriate alternative to characterize drug vs. non-drug Cannabis. However, forensic applications require rapid and affordable genotyping of informative and reliable molecular markers for which a broad-scale reference database, representing both intra- and inter-variety variation, is available. Here we provide such a resource for Cannabis, by genotyping 13 microsatellite loci (STRs) in 1,324 samples selected specifically for fiber (24 hemp varieties) and drug (15 marijuana varieties) production. We showed that these loci are sufficient to capture most of the genome-wide diversity patterns recently revealed by next-generation sequencing (NGS) data. We recovered strong genetic structure between marijuana and hemp and demonstrated that anonymous samples can be confidently assigned to either plant types. Fibers appear genetically homogeneous whereas drugs show low (often clonal) diversity within varieties, but very high genetic differentiation between them, likely resulting from breeding practices. Based on an additional test dataset that includes samples from 41 local police seizures, we showed that the genetic signature of marijuana cultivars could be used to trace crime scene evidence. To date, our study provides the most comprehensive genetic resource for Cannabis forensics worldwide.
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This presentation is faithful to the original, with only a few minor changes to presentation. In some cases important information was missing from the references, and that information was added.
