Palhares Rafael Melo, Gonçalves Drummond Marcela, Dos Santos Alves Figueiredo Brasil Bruno, Pereira Cosenza Gustavo, das Graças Lins Brandão Maria, Oliveira Guilherme
Programa de Pós-graduação em Genética, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Myleus Biotechnology Research Team, Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Grupo de Genômica e Biologia Computacional, Centro de Pesquisa Rene Rachou, FIOCRUZ, Belo Horizonte, Brasil.
Myleus Biotechnology Research Team, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
PLoS One. 2015 May 15;10(5):e0127866. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0127866. eCollection 2015.
Medicinal plants are used throughout the world, and the regulations defining their proper use, such as identification of the correct species and verification of the presence, purity and concentration of the required chemical compounds, are widely recognized. Herbal medicines are made from vegetal drugs, the processed products of medicinal species. These processed materials present a number of challenges in terms of botanical identification, and according to the World Health Organization (WHO), the use of incorrect species is a threat to consumer safety. The samples used in this study consisted of the dried leaves, flowers and roots of 257 samples from 8 distinct species approved by the WHO for the production of medicinal herbs and sold in Brazilian markets. Identification of the samples in this study using DNA barcoding (matK, rbcL and ITS2 regions) revealed that the level of substitutions may be as high as 71%. Using qualitative and quantitative chemical analyses, this study identified situations in which the correct species was being sold, but the chemical compounds were not present. Even more troubling, some samples identified as substitutions using DNA barcoding contained the chemical compounds from the correct species at the minimum required concentration. This last situation may lead to the use of unknown species or species whose safety for human consumption remains unknown. This study concludes that DNA barcoding should be used in a complementary manner for species identification with chemical analyses to detect and quantify the required chemical compounds, thus improving the quality of this class of medicines.
药用植物在世界各地都有使用，关于其正确使用的规定，如正确物种的鉴定以及所需化合物的存在、纯度和浓度的验证，已得到广泛认可。草药由植物药制成，即药用植物的加工产品。这些加工材料在植物鉴定方面存在诸多挑战，根据世界卫生组织（WHO）的说法，使用错误的物种对消费者安全构成威胁。本研究使用的样本包括来自世界卫生组织批准用于生产草药并在巴西市场销售的8个不同物种的257个样本的干叶、花和根。本研究使用DNA条形码（matK、rbcL和ITS2区域）对样本进行鉴定，结果显示替换水平可能高达71%。通过定性和定量化学分析，本研究发现了一些情况，即销售的是正确的物种，但却不存在所需的化合物。更令人担忧的是，一些通过DNA条形码鉴定为替代品的样本含有正确物种的化合物，但其浓度为最低要求浓度。最后这种情况可能导致使用未知物种或其对人类消费的安全性尚不清楚的物种。本研究得出结论，DNA条形码应与化学分析以互补的方式用于物种鉴定，以检测和量化所需的化合物，从而提高这类药物的质量。
