With the advent of Next Generation Sequencing technologies there have been proposals for many DNA regions to act as a genetic identifier. In plants, one region stands out due to its variant nature: ITS. ITS regions (ITS1,ITS2), located between the 5.8S gene and 16S (ITS1) and between 16S and 26S genes (ITS2), shows differentiation between taxa and is used as identifier even in closely related taxa. Based on this, we developed Crowth, a platform for the genetic identification and quantification of samples from grapevine, olive and flowers. Crowth is based on the variant nature of ITS to create genetic identities for the plants in the databases and comparing them with the sample. Crowth currently hosts plants growing in Crete. Crete was selected thanks to its diverse microclimates allowing more than 200 endemic plants to co-exist. Crete is the most biodiverse greek island and thus a good starting point. Crowth also incorporates a complete SSR analysis pipeline for the identification of grapevine as a backwards – compatible method.
Population Genetics and Bioinformatics