Authentication of Herbal Medicines and Using DNA Barcodes, Chloroplast Genome, and Sequence Characterized Amplified Region (SCAR) Marker.

Dried roots of (Caprifoliaceae) are used as important traditional herbal medicines in Korea. However, the roots are often used as a mixture or contaminated with in Korean herbal markets. Furthermore, the dried roots of (Lamiaceae) are used indiscriminately with those of , with the confusing Korean names of Sok-Dan and Han-Sok-Dan for and , respectively. Although and are important herbal medicines, the molecular marker and genomic information available for these species are limited. In this study, we analysed DNA barcodes to distinguish among , , and and sequenced the chloroplast (CP) genomes of and . The CP genomes of and were 160,530 and 160,371 bp in length, respectively, and were highly divergent from those of the other Caprifoliaceae species. Phylogenetic analysis revealed a monophyletic group within Caprifoliaceae. We also developed a novel sequence characterised amplified region (SCAR) markers to distinguish among , , and . Our results provide important taxonomic, phylogenetic, and evolutionary information on the species. The SCAR markers developed here will be useful for the authentication of herbal medicines.