Molecular DNA identification of medicinal plants used by traditional healers in Malaysia

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Plants have been used throughout human history for food and medicine. However, many plants are toxic, and cannot easily be morphologically distinguished from non-toxic plants. DNA identification solves this problem and is widely used. Nonetheless, plant DNA barcode identification faces a number of challenges, and many studies have been conducted to find suitable barcodes. The present study was conducted to test the efficiency of commonly used primers, namely ITS2, rpoC1, and trnH-psbA, in order to find the best DNA barcode markers for the identification of medicinal plants in Malaysia. Fresh leaves from 12 medicinal plants that are commonly used by Malay traditional healers were collected from the Tropical Spice Garden, Pulau Pinang, and subjected to polymerase chain reaction amplification using ITS2, rpoC1, and trnH-psbA DNA markers. We found that trnH-psbA is the best DNA marker for the species-level identification of medicinal plants in Malaysia.

Molecular identification and phylogenetic analysis of important medicinal plant species in genus Paeonia based on rDNA-ITS, matK, and rbcL DNA barcode sequences

“…Non-coding regions, such as the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (rDNA-ITS) and the psbA-trnH and trnL-F intergenic spacers, evolve quickly by acquisition of substitutions and indels, whereas protein-coding regions such as matK and rbcL do not (Tripathi et al, 2013;Vassou et al, 2015). Our measured values of inter-and intra-specific distances are consistent with those reported previously and they confirm that the rDNA-ITS locus has evolved more rapidly than matK and rbcL in the four Paeonia species (Tripathi et al, 2013;Aziz et al, 2015;Vassou et al, 2015;Zhao et al, 2015).…”

“…Consequently, rDNA-ITS sequences have the potential to distinguish between medicinal plants and their close relatives. Recently, these DNA barcode regions have frequently been applied to diverse herbal medicines to authenticate medicinal plant species and analyze the molecular phylogeny of medicinal herbs (Kim et al, 2013;Ma et al, 2014;Aziz et al, 2015;Zheng et al, 2015). In this study, we comparatively analyzed the three DNA barcode regions, rDNA-ITS, matK, and rbcL, to evaluate their ability to identify the four, potentially confused medicinal Paeonia species.…”

“…The chloroplast and nuclear genomes contain multiple candidate DNA barcode regions with high substitution rates. Among these regions, rDNA-internal transcribed spacers (ITS), rbcL, matK, psbA-trnH, trnL-F, and trnH have been used to identify plant species and analyze phylogenetic relationships (Tripathi et al, 2013;Chen et al, 2014;Aziz et al, 2015;Vassou et al, 2015). The rbcL region is considered to be a universal DNA barcode region, but it is less useful for species identification due to its slow rate of molecular evolution (Tripathi et al, 2013;Ma et al, 2014).…”

Authentication of commercial spices based on the similarities between gas chromatographic fingerprints

“…In addition, seasonings can be prepared from a mixture of dried spices, thereby complicating their identification further. Although DNA‐based identification methods have become powerful tools for the analysis of various plant varieties, these methods usually require complicated procedures and high costs. Therefore, the development of a simple and cost‐effective discrimination technique based on the identification of chemical or biological components is essential.…”

Consumer preference, antibacterial activity and genetic diversity of ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe) cultivars grown in Sri Lanka

“…The DNA barcoding has been effi ciently employed to accurately identify the medicinal species such as Uncaria spp. (Zhang et al, 2015), Centella asiatica and Piper betle (Aziz et al, 2015). The GenBank (Benson et al, 2015, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/), the universal database for DNA and protein sequences, contains many DNA barcodes (i.e.…”