Background

Aconitum heterophyllum Wall. ex Royle and Aconitum balfourii Stapf, are two highly important, threatened medicinal plants of the Indian Himalayan Region. Root-tubers of Aconites have occupied an important place in Indian pharmacopoeia from very ancient times. India is a hub of the wild-collected medicinal herbs industry in Asia and these two aconites are known to have been heavily traded from the region in illicit manner. Prosecution of these illegal trading crimes is hampered by lack of pharma-forensic expertise and tools.

Methods and results

Present study was conducted to evaluate the discriminatory potential of rbcL, a Chloroplast based DNA barcode marker for the authentication of these two Himalayan Aconites. Fresh plant samples were collected from their natural distributional range as well as raw materials were procured from herbal market and a total of 32 sequences were generated for the rbcL region. Analysis demonstrated that rbcL region can successfully be used for authentication and importantly, both the aconites, were successfully discriminated by rbcL locus with high bootstrap support (> 50%).

Conclusion

Molecular markers could certainly be relied upon morphological and chemical markers being tissue specific, having a higher discriminatory power and not age dependent. Phylogenetic analysis using Maximum Likelihood Method revealed that the rbcL gene could successfully discriminate Himalayan Aconites to species level and have potential to be used in pharma-forensic applications as well as to curb illicit trade of these invaluable medicinal plants.

中文翻译：

---

rbcL，附子的潜在候选 DNA 条形码位点：喜马拉雅附子的保护

背景

乌头太子参墙。ex Royle 和乌头 balfourii Stapf 是印度喜马拉雅地区的两种非常重要的受威胁药用植物。自古以来，附子的块根就在印度药典中占有重要地位。印度是亚洲野生采集药材产业的中心，众所周知，这两种附子在该地区以非法方式大量交易。由于缺乏医药取证专业知识和工具，对这些非法贸易犯罪的起诉受到了阻碍。

方法和结果

本研究旨在评估 rbcL 的鉴别潜力，rbcL 是一种基于叶绿体的 DNA 条形码标记，用于鉴定这两种喜马拉雅附子。从自然分布范围收集新鲜植物样本，从草药市场采购原材料，共生成rbcL区域的 32 个序列。分析表明，rbcL区域可以成功地用于身份验证，重要的是，两种附子都被具有高引导支持 (> 50%)的rbcL基因座成功区分。

结论

分子标记当然可以依赖于组织特异性的形态学和化学标记，具有更高的鉴别能力并且不依赖于年龄。使用最大似然法的系统发育分析表明，rbcL基因可以成功地将喜马拉雅附子区分为物种水平，并有可能用于药物法医应用以及遏制这些宝贵药用植物的非法贸易。