Table 1.

Illustration of the Ampsig format with example values

#	Field	Example Value	Information
1	Technique	AFLP	Full abbreviation of type of DNA markers, such as AFLP, SSR, RAPD
2	Experiment	EcoRI_ACA-MseI_CAC	For VNTR, RAPD and SSR markers, primer sequences will be given in full. In this example, a six-nucleotide cutting enzyme EcoRI and a four-nucleotide cutting enzyme MseI were used to digest genomic DNA. PCR reaction was conducted with an EcoRI primer with selective nucleotides ACA, and a MseI primer with selective nucleotides CAC
3	Source	D Sonia id0011	Biological source of DNA. The binomial system with abbreviation of genus followed by species name is used to designate biological species. It is followed by a four-digit ID number to identify individual samples. In this example, DNA was isolated from a plant belonging to genus Dendrobium, species Sonia, with a lab-assigned ID 0011
4	UnitSize	1	Unit size of DNA fragment to define the unit spacing. It can also be interpreted as the sequence resolution. In this example, the 1 indicates that the sequence spacing is 1 base pair.
5	StartSize	50	Size of the first DNA fragment (in base pairs)
6	EndSize	90	Size of the last DNA fragment. This field is redundant, and is kept mainly for proof-reading
7	Annotation	AFLP profile for D. Sonia	Annotation of the fingerprint (only if required)
8	Signature	A..B..DC..B.D.....CC...A.....DDA.A....C..D..BB	Alternatively, a system employing the symbols [4,3,2,1] for peaks and [0] for peak-absence may also be used.