Liu Zhen-Wen, Gao Yu-Zhen, Zhou Jing
CAS Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.
School of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Yunnan Key Laboratory of Pharmacology for Natural Products, Kunming Medical University, Kunming, China.
Front Plant Sci. 2019 Apr 9;10:429. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2019.00429. eCollection 2019.
Ligustici Rhizoma et Radix (LReR), an important Chinese medicine known as "Gao-ben," refers to Oliv. or Nakai et Kitag. However, a number of other species are commonly sold as "Gao-ben" in the herbal medicine market, which may result in a series of quality control problems and inconsistent therapeutic effects. The "Gao-ben" is commonly sold sliced and dried, making traditional identification methods difficult. Here, the mini barcode ITS2 region was examined on 68 samples representing LReR and 7 potential adulterant or substitute species. The results showed 100% success rates of PCR and sequencing and the existence of a barcoding gap. The neighbor-joining (NJ) tree indicated that all the tested samples could be exactly identified. The ITS2 secondary structure revealed a clear difference between true "Gao-ben" and three adulterant species. We therefore recommend the use of ITS2 as a mini barcode for distinguishing between closely or distantly related plant species that may be used in Chinese medicine.
羌活，一种名为“藁本”的重要中药材，指的是羌活（Ligusticum sinense Oliv.）或宽叶羌活（Ligusticum franchetii （Wolff） Nakai et Kitag.）。然而，在草药市场上，有许多其他物种常被当作“藁本”出售，这可能会导致一系列质量控制问题和疗效不一致的情况。“藁本”通常切片晒干后出售，使得传统鉴定方法难以实施。在此，我们对代表羌活以及7种潜在掺假或替代物种的68个样本进行了微型条形码ITS2区域检测。结果显示PCR和测序成功率达100%，且存在条形码间隙。邻接法（NJ）树状图表明，所有测试样本均可被准确鉴定。ITS2二级结构显示，正品“藁本”与三种掺假物种之间存在明显差异。因此，我们建议使用ITS2作为微型条形码，以区分可能用于中药材的近缘或远缘植物物种。
