Nithaniyal Stalin, Vassou Sophie Lorraine, Poovitha Sundar, Raju Balaji, Parani Madasamy
Department of Genetic Engineering, Center for DNA Barcoding, SRM University, Kattankulathur 603203, India.
Genome. 2017 Feb;60(2):139-146. doi: 10.1139/gen-2015-0225. Epub 2016 Oct 14.
Plants are the major source of therapeutic ingredients in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). However, species adulteration in traded medicinal plant raw drugs threatens the reliability and safety of CAM. Since morphological features of medicinal plants are often not intact in the raw drugs, DNA barcoding was employed for species identification. Adulteration in 112 traded raw drugs was tested after creating a reference DNA barcode library consisting of 1452 rbcL and matK barcodes from 521 medicinal plant species. Species resolution of this library was 74.4%, 90.2%, and 93.0% for rbcL, matK, and rbcL + matK, respectively. DNA barcoding revealed adulteration in about 20% of the raw drugs, and at least 6% of them were derived from plants with completely different medicinal or toxic properties. Raw drugs in the form of dried roots, powders, and whole plants were found to be more prone to adulteration than rhizomes, fruits, and seeds. Morphological resemblance, co-occurrence, mislabeling, confusing vernacular names, and unauthorized or fraudulent substitutions might have contributed to species adulteration in the raw drugs. Therefore, this library can be routinely used to authenticate traded raw drugs for the benefit of all stakeholders: traders, consumers, and regulatory agencies.
植物是补充和替代医学（CAM）中治疗成分的主要来源。然而，市售药用植物原料中的物种掺假威胁着补充和替代医学的可靠性和安全性。由于药用植物的形态特征在原料中往往不完整，因此采用DNA条形码进行物种鉴定。在创建了一个参考DNA条形码文库后，对112种市售原料进行了掺假检测，该文库包含来自521种药用植物物种的1452个rbcL和matK条形码。该文库对rbcL、matK和rbcL + matK的物种分辨率分别为74.4%、90.2%和93.0%。DNA条形码揭示了约20%的原料存在掺假，其中至少6%来自具有完全不同药用或毒性特性的植物。发现干燥根、粉末和整株植物形式的原料比根茎、果实和种子更容易掺假。形态相似、共生、标签错误、俗名混淆以及未经授权或欺诈性替代可能导致了原料中的物种掺假。因此，该文库可常规用于鉴定市售原料，以造福所有利益相关者：贸易商、消费者和监管机构。
