Review: DNA Barcoding and Chromatography Fingerprints for the Authentication of Botanicals in Herbal Medicinal Products

Abstract

In the last two decades, there has been a tremendous increase in the global use of herbal medicinal products (HMPs) due to their claimed health benefits. This has led to increase in their demand and consequently, also, resulted in massive adulteration. This is due to the fact that most of the traditional methods cannot identify closely related species in a process product form. Therefore the urgent need for simple and rapid identification methods resulted in the discovery of a novel technique. DNA barcoding is a process that uses short DNA sequence from the standard genome for species identification. This technique is reliable and is not affected by external factors such as climates, age, or plant part. The difficulties in isolation of DNA of high quality in addition to other factors are among the challenges encountered using the DNA barcoding in the authentication of HMP. These limitations indicated that using DNA barcoding alone may ineffectively authenticate the HMP. Therefore, the combination of DNA barcoding with chromatographic fingerprint, a popular and generally accepted technique for the assessment and quality control of HMP, will offer an efficient solution to effectively evaluate the authenticity and quality consistency of HMP. Detailed and quality information about the main composition of the HMPs will help to ascertain their efficacy and safety as these are very important for quality control.

From Plant Compounds to Botanicals and Back: A Current Snapshot

“…Also Abubakar et al [ 42 ] in an effective research have proposed and discussed DNA barcoding in combination with chromatography fingerprints for the authentication of botanical ingredients in herbal medicines.…”

Metabolite Profiles and Antioxidant Activity of Caulerpa racemosa with Different Handlings

“…Thereafter, the f ree extract of inorganic compounds was fractionated and isolated sequentially on preparative, semipreparative and analytical HPLC columns to obtain the target bioactive compound isolates. Reverse Phase HPLC has a broad range of selectivity coupled with a high degree of reproducibility.The retention time of RP-HPLC is longer for less polar molecules; as such, the polar molecules elute more readily (Abubakar, Salleh, Omar, & Wagiran, 2017).…”

DNA Barcoding for the Identification and Authentication of Animal Species in Traditional Medicine

“…It is known that animal-based TMs are mainly derived from animal tissues, organs, or metabolites, and these parts are usually processed into diverse preparations such as slice, powder, and tablet, resulting in difficulties for morphology-based species identification. In addition, several commercial technologies used for species identification, including chromatography and immunoassay, are relatively costly and expertise-dependent, which is not suitable for bulk detection of TM preparations and forensic specimens [ 18 , 19 ]. Therefore, developing an accurate and efficient identification method represents an urgent need for animal-based TM.…”

“…In recent decade, advance in molecular techniques has promoted the application of simple and precise DNA analysis in taxonomic field. Among the prevailing genome-based approaches, DNA barcoding provides a robust strategy to identify existing species and discover unknown species via comparative analysis of sequence variation [ 19 – 21 ]. Extensive studies have shown that DNA barcoding is capable of identifying a wide range of animal species, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and crustaceans [ 21 – 24 ].…”

“…Moreover, many international organizations such as the Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) and the Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD) have been established to promote DNA barcoding as a global standard for species identification. In addition to taxonomy, DNA barcoding has recently been applied in various fields, including medicine and food science, forensics, and conservation biology [ 19 , 20 , 25 – 27 ]. In the field of TM, DNA barcoding has been widely used to authenticate herbal sources [ 19 , 20 ].…”