Assessing universality of DNA barcoding in geographically isolated selected desert medicinal species of Fabaceae and Poaceae

Abstract

In pursuit of developing fast and accurate species-level molecular identification methods, we tested six DNA barcodes, namely ITS2, matK, rbcLa, ITS2+matK, ITS2+rbcLa, matK+rbcLa and ITS2+matK+rbcLa, for their capacity to identify frequently consumed but geographically isolated medicinal species of Fabaceae and Poaceae indigenous to the desert of Cholistan. Data were analysed by BLASTn sequence similarity, pairwise sequence divergence in TAXONDNA, and phylogenetic (neighbour-joining and maximum-likelihood trees) methods. Comparison of six barcode regions showed that ITS2 has the highest number of variable sites (209/360) for tested Fabaceae and (106/365) Poaceae species, the highest species-level identification (40%) in BLASTn procedure, distinct DNA barcoding gap, 100% correct species identification in BM and BCM functions of TAXONDNA, and clear cladding pattern with high nodal support in phylogenetic trees in both families. ITS2+matK+rbcLa followed ITS2 in its species-level identification capacity. The study was concluded with advocating the DNA barcoding as an effective tool for species identification and ITS2 as the best barcode region in identifying medicinal species of Fabaceae and Poaceae. Current research has practical implementation potential in the fields of pharmaco-vigilance, trade of medicinal plants and biodiversity conservation.

Evaluating the Effect of Chemical Treatment on DNA Recovery and Amplification from Grass Stained Cloth

“…Moreover, the current work also complements the results of Birch et al (2017) where ITS 2 marker is considered as the informative marker for DNA barcoding in grasses. The results of our research work are somewhat similar to the work of Tahir et al (2018) and Aljuhnani (2019) where the universality of ITS 2, Rbcl and MatK marker on fresh and dry samples of medicinal species of Fabaceae and Poaceaewere observed. In both the cases where ITS 2 marker gave 360 bp (Fabaceae), 365bp (Poaceae) and 201-304 bp (dryplant) of amplicons another work done by Moorhouse-Gunn et al (2018) shows the results of 291 bp (Table V).…”

“…Moreover, the conventional methods are time-consuming, fallible and more subjective to human expertise (Chen et al, 2010). Therefore, it is evident that DNA based approaches are superior to the identification of grass species (Grebenstein et al, 1998;Ward et al 2009;Saadullah et al, 2016;Tahir et al, 2018). Being the highly efficient, convenient and accurate technique DNA is used in a wide range of botanical evidence.…”

DNA Barcodes for Accurate Identification of Selected Medicinal Plants (Caryophyllales): Toward Barcoding Flowering Plants of the United Arab Emirates

“…The types of DNA barcode markers used for plant identification range from a single chloroplast region to a combination of different regions (see [30,31,38]). Significant progress has been made in the identification of medicinal plants using DNA barcoding (e.g., [25,31,[39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]. For medicinal plant identification, some researchers have used a combination of markers between matK, rbcL, trnH-psbA, and ITS2 sequences.…”

Comparative Molecular Identification of Genus Dicentrarchus Using Mitochondrial Genes and Internal Transcribed Spacer Region

“…However, the direct use of ITS region, ITS1 and ITS2 as a universal barcode for barcoding fish species is not common and COI is still the primary and the most efficient barcode used for fish identification. In addition, there are many conflicting views about the exact ITS locus that should be used as a barcode, (complete ITS region, ITS1 or ITS2) (Yao et al, 2010;Wang et al, 2015;Tahir et al, 2018). ITS2 is known to be a satisfactory barcode for medicinal plants families identification such as Fabaceae and Poaceae (Tahir et al, 2018), and it is more effective than the complete ITS region for barcoding of plants (Han et al, 2012).…”

“…In addition, there are many conflicting views about the exact ITS locus that should be used as a barcode, (complete ITS region, ITS1 or ITS2) (Yao et al, 2010;Wang et al, 2015;Tahir et al, 2018). ITS2 is known to be a satisfactory barcode for medicinal plants families identification such as Fabaceae and Poaceae (Tahir et al, 2018), and it is more effective than the complete ITS region for barcoding of plants (Han et al, 2012). On the other hand , according to (Wang et al, 2015;Yao et al, 2010), ITS1 over performed ITS2 in barcoding number of eukaryotic taxa using sequences from the Genebank on the bases of the sequences CG content.…”