A REVISED ITS NUCLEOTIDE SEQUENCE GIVES A SPECIFITYFOR Smallanthus sonchifolius(POEPP. AND ENDL.) AND ITS PRODUCTS IDENTIFICATION

Yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolius) is an Andean crop which is very regarded for its benefits for people suffering from diabetesor various digestive or renal disorders. Because no specific Smallanthus sonchifoliusidentification DNA markers are still known the paper demonstrates ITS regions to be ableto detect and differentiate among yacon species and the potential for specific food authentification purposes is reported, too. The newly sequenced ITS of yacon accessions originated in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia analyse provide the unique sequence site that differs from all of the other yacon species and is recognized by DraIII restriction endonuclease. Restriction cleavadge of the PCR amplified ITSs of the twenty-eight yacon accessions was performed and in all cases the recognition site was confirmed as a typical for Smallanthus sonchifolius. Based on the nucleotide specifity of Smallanthus sonchifolius, ITS sequence the PCR method combined with the restriction clevadge protocol was developed for yacon identification.