Species identification of poisonous medicinal plant using DNA barcoding

Publication date: August 2019Source: Chinese Journal of Natural Medicines, Volume 17, Issue 8Author(s): Miao LIU, Xi-Wen LI, Bao-Sheng LIAO, Lu LUO, Yue-Ying RENAbstractThe aim is to select a universal DNA barcode for identifying all poisonous medicinal plants in Chinese pharmacopoeia and their poisonous related species or adulterants. We chose 4 commonly used regions as candidate DNA barcodes (ITS2, psbA-trnH, matK and rbcL) and compared their identification efficiency in 106 species from 27 families and 65 genera totally. Data analysis was performed including the information of sequence alignment, inter/intra-specific genetic distance and data distribution, identification efficiency and the situation of Neighbor-Joining (NJ) phylogenetic trees. We found ITS2 sequence region had high variation, stable genetic distance and identification efficiency relatively. The topological structure of NJ phylogenetic tree showed monophyletic. Our findings show that ITS2 can be applied as a universal barcode for identifying poisonous medicinal plants in Chinese pharmacopoeia and their poisonous related species or adulterants.
Source: Chinese Journal of Natural Medicines - Category: Complementary Medicine Source Type: research