Broad-scale genetic diversity of Cannabis for forensic applications

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 fibre (24 hemp varieties) and drug (15 marijuana varie...大麻（Cannabis）是一种极具标志性且颇具争议的作物。一方面，其在制药与农业领域拥有持续扩张的市场空间。另一方面，能够合成精神活性四氢大麻酚（THC）的大麻植株，可产出全球范围内流传最广的违禁毒品。然而，仅依靠形态学或生化标准难以可靠区分不同大麻品种，这不仅阻碍了颇具潜力的工业化项目的推进，也掣肘了毒品贩运打击工作。遗传学手段为鉴定毒品型与非毒品型大麻提供了合适的解决方案。然而，法医取证应用需要对具备信息价值且可靠的分子标记进行快速且经济实惠的基因分型，而目前亟需一套能够涵盖品种内与品种间遗传变异的大规模参考数据库。本研究针对大麻构建了此类参考数据库：我们对1324份专门选取的样本开展了13个微卫星位点（STRs）的基因分型，其中包括24个纤维用工业大麻品种与15个毒品型大麻品种（原文末尾截断）。