Resumen de The Cannabis sativa L. fingerprint as a tool in forensic investigations

G. Siniscalco Gigliano, A. Finizio

• The authors report on a method to identify unknown samples of plant material as Cannabis sativa L. The method involves polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of the internal transcribed spacer I (ITS1) of the nuclear ribosomal deoxyribonucleic acid (n-rDNA) in five different accessions of C. sativa from various geographical areas, as well as in one accession of Humulus lupulus L., which belongs to the only other genus of the family Cannabaceae.

  The use of ITS1, amplified and successively digested with appropriate restriction endonucleases, has allowed the construction of a Cannabis fingerprint that can be used in forensic investigations for the identification of samples suspected of being Cannabis.

  The method reported in the present paper has the merit of making it possible to process very small amounts of material; it is also not expensive, does not require access to a sequencing facility and does not utilize sophisticated apparatus.