China Military Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, Medicine Center of 302 Military Hospital, Beijing.
J Pharm Pharm Sci. 2011;14(3):358-67. doi: 10.18433/j3n017.
PURPOSE. Animal-derived drugs are the major source of biological products and traditional medicine, but they are often difficult to identify, causing confusion in the clinical application. Among these medicinal animals, a number of animal species are endangered, leading to the destruction of biodiversity. The identification of animal-derived drugs and their alternatives would be a first step toward biodiversity conservation and safe medication. Until now, no effective method for identifying animal-derived drugs has been demonstrated; DNA-based species identification presents a brand-new technique. METHODS. We designed primers to amplify a 523-bp fragment of 12S rRNA and generated sequences for 13 individuals within six medicinal animal species. We examined the efficiency of species recognition based on this sequence, and we also tested the taxonomic affiliations against the GenBank database. RESULTS. All the tested drugs were identified successfully, and a visible gap was found between the inter-specific and intra-specific variation. We further demonstrated the importance of data exploration in DNA-based species identification practice by examining the sequence characteristics of relative genera in GenBank. This region of the 12S rRNA gene had a 100% success rate of species recognition within the six medicinal animal species. CONCLUSIONS. We propose that the 12S rRNA locus might be universal for identifying animal-derived drugs and their adulterants. The development of 12S rRNA for indentifying animal-derived drugs that share a common gene target would contribute significantly to the clinical application of animal-derived drugs and the conservation of medicinal animal species. This article is open to POST-PUBLICATION REVIEW. Registered readers (see "For Readers") may comment by clicking on ABSTRACT on the issue's contents page.
目的。动物源性药物是生物制品和传统药物的主要来源，但由于其难以鉴定，常常导致临床应用中的混淆。在这些药用动物中，有许多动物物种处于濒危状态，导致生物多样性遭到破坏。对动物源性药物及其替代品进行鉴定，是实现生物多样性保护和安全用药的第一步。到目前为止，还没有证明任何有效的动物源性药物鉴定方法；基于 DNA 的物种鉴定则提供了一种全新的技术。方法。我们设计了引物来扩增 12S rRNA 的 523bp 片段，并对六种药用动物物种中的 13 个个体进行了序列生成。我们根据该序列检验了物种识别的效率，并将分类群与 GenBank 数据库进行了测试。结果。所有测试的药物都被成功识别，种间和种内变异之间存在明显差异。我们通过检查 GenBank 中相对属的序列特征，进一步证明了在 DNA 物种鉴定实践中数据探索的重要性。该 12S rRNA 基因区域在六种药用动物物种内的物种识别成功率达到 100%。结论。我们提出，12S rRNA 基因座可能是鉴定动物源性药物及其掺杂物的通用方法。开发针对具有共同基因靶点的动物源性药物的 12S rRNA 鉴定方法，将为动物源性药物的临床应用和药用动物物种的保护做出重大贡献。本文接受 POST-PUBLICATION REVIEW。注册读者（请参阅“读者须知”）可以点击问题内容页面上的 ABSTRACT 进行评论。
