Evaluation of High-Resolution Melting for Rapid Differentiation of Hybrids and Their Parental Species.

species hybrids have been repeatedly reported as causing damaging diseases to cultivated and wild plants. Two known hybrids, and × , are pathogens of Solanaceae and ornamentals, respectively, although the extent of their host ranges are unknown. emerged from hybridization of and an unidentified related species, whereas × emerged from and . Considering that hybrids and parental species can coexist in the same regions and to distinguish them usually requires cloning or whole genome sequencing, we aimed to develop a rapid tool to distinguish them. Specifically, we used high-resolution melting (HRM) assays to differentiate genotypes based on their amplicon melting profiles. We designed primers for × and parental species based on available sequences of and nuclear genes containing polymorphisms between species. For , heterozygous sites from Illumina short reads were used for the same purpose. We identified multiple amplicons exhibiting differences in melting curves between parental species and hybrids. We propose HRM as a rapid method for differentiation of and × hybrids from parental species that could be employed to advance research on these pathogens.