Gu Hai-Feng, Xia Yun, Penga Rui, Mo Bang-Hui, Li Li, Zenga Xiao-Mao
Chengdu Institute ofBiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, PR China.
Nat Prod Commun. 2011 Jan;6(1):67-71.
Gekko gecko, an animal used as a valued traditional Chinese medicine, has been widely used for over 2000 years. Due to localized habitat destruction, the amount of G. gecko has dramatically decreased in recent years. As a result, more and more adulterants have been detected in the traditional medicine, which has resulted in a chaotic market. Therefore, a correct identification method is badly needed. In this study, we employed a new molecular method of DNA barcoding for discriminating gecko from its adulterants. Fifty-seven specimens of gecko and its adulterants were collected as test samples. The full-barcode and mini-barcode sequences of these specimens were separately amplified and sequenced separately. Together with other published barcode sequences, we detected that the intra-specific sequence diversity was far lower than the inter-specific diversity in G. gecko and its adulterants (3% compared with 35% in full-length barcode; 4% compared with 33.5% in mini-barcode). These results showed that both the full-length and mini-barcodes were effective for identifying gecko, which suggested that the DNA barcode could be an effective and powerful tool for identifying the Chinese crude drug gecko.
蛤蚧，一种被用作名贵中药材的动物，已被广泛使用了两千多年。由于局部栖息地遭到破坏，近年来蛤蚧的数量急剧减少。因此，在传统药物中检测到越来越多的掺假品，导致市场混乱。所以，急需一种正确的鉴别方法。在本研究中，我们采用了一种新的DNA条形码分子方法来区分蛤蚧与其掺假品。收集了57个蛤蚧及其掺假品的标本作为测试样本。分别对这些标本的全条形码和微型条形码序列进行扩增和测序。与其他已发表的条形码序列一起，我们发现蛤蚧及其掺假品的种内序列多样性远低于种间多样性（全长条形码中分别为3%和35%；微型条形码中分别为4%和33.5%）。这些结果表明，全长条形码和微型条形码都能有效鉴别蛤蚧，这表明DNA条形码可能是鉴别中药材蛤蚧的一种有效且强大的工具。
