BackgroundRhizoma Paridis (Chonglou) is a commonly used and precious traditional Chinese medicine. Paris polyphylla Smith var. yunnanensis (Franch.) Hand. -Mazz. and Paris polyphylla Smith var. chinensis (Franch.) Hara are the two main sources of Chonglou under the monograph of Rhizoma Paridis in Chinese Pharmacopoeia. In the local marketplace, however, this medicine is prone to be accidentally contaminated, deliberately substituted or admixed with other species that are similar to Rhizoma Paridis in shape and color. Consequently, these adulterations might compromise quality control and result in considerable health concerns for consumers. This study aims to develop a rapid and sensitive method for accurate identification of Rhizoma Paridis and its common adulterants.MethodsDNA barcoding coupled with high resolution melting analysis was applied in this research to distinguish Rhizoma Paridis from its adulteration. The internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) barcode was selected for HRM analysis to produce standard melting profile of the selected species. DNA of the tested herbal medicines was isolated and their melting profiles were generated and compared with the standard melting profile of P. polyphylla var. chinensis.ResultsThe results indicate that the ITS2 molecular regions coupled with HRM analysis can effectively differentiate nine herbal species, including two authentic origins of Chonglou and their seven common adulterants. Ten herbal medicines labeled “Chonglou” obtained from a local market were collected and identified with our methods, and their sequence information was analyzed to validate the accuracy of HRM analysis.ConclusionsDNA barcoding coupled with HRM analysis is a accurate, reliable, rapid, cost-effective and robust tool, which could contribute to the quality control of Rhizoma Paridis in the supply chain of the natural health product industry (NHP).Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13020-018-0162-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Coriaria nepalensis Wall. is a toxic Chinese herbal medicine. In this study, the complete chloroplast (cp) genome of C. nepalensis was first reported. The length of the large single-copy (LSC) region was 158,499 bp, the small single-copy (SSC) region was 18,411 bp, and the inverted repeats (IRs) region were 26,552 bp, with 37.76% overall GC content. There were 132 genes in total, including 86 mRNA, 38 tRNA, and 8 rRNA. Phylogenetic analysis showed that C. nepalensis was closely related to Corynocarpus laevigatus.
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