EST-SSR Marker Sets for Practical Authentication of All Nine Registered Ginseng Cultivars in Korea

Panax ginseng has been cultivated for centuries, and nine commercial cultivars have been registered in Korea. However, these nine elite cultivars are grown in less than 10% of ginseng fields, and there is no clear authentication system for each cultivar even though their values are higher than those of local landraces. Here, we have developed 19 microsatellite markers using expressed gene sequences and established an authentication system for all nine cultivars. Five cultivars, ‘Chunpoong’, ‘Sunpoong’, ‘Gumpoong’, ‘Sunun’, and ‘Sunone’, can each be identified by one cultivar-unique allele, gm47n-a, gm47n-c, gm104-a, gm184-a (or gm129-a), and gm175-c, respectively. ‘Yunpoong’ can be identified by the co-appearance of gm47n-b and gm129-c. ‘Sunhyang’ can be distinguished from the other eight cultivars by the co-appearance of gm47n-b, gm129-b, and gm175-a. The two other cultivars, ‘Gopoong’ and ‘Cheongsun’, can be identified by their specific combinations of five marker alleles. This marker set was successfully utilized to identify the cultivars among 70 ginseng individuals and to select true F1 hybrid plants between two cultivars. We further analyzed the homogeneity of each cultivar and phylogenetic relationships among cultivars using these markers. This marker system will be useful to the seed industry and for breeding of ginseng.