Development of SYBR green-based real-time PCR markers for verifying Silybum marianum and Cirsium japonicum.

Silybum marianum has other common names, for example milk thistle. This species is an annual or biennial plant of the Asteraceae family. This fairly typical thistle has red flowers and shiny pale green leaves with white veins. Originally a native um of Southern Europe, it is located throughout the world. Milk thistle has been used for a number of purposes including treatment of liver disease. However, in Korea, Cirsium japonicum was labeled as milk thistle and sold as food. Cirsium japonicum and milk thistle are very difficult to distinguish because they are very similar in morphology after drying. Therefore we tried to classification between Cirsium japonicum and milk thistle. Here, we have been developed a species-specific primer sets using the chloroplast genome to classify two plants.