Barcode High Resolution Melting (Bar-HRM) analysis for authentication of Echinacea products

Echinacea purpurea products are among the top-selling herbal products and used for reducing many symptoms of cold, flu and some other conditions. The market for herbal products has increased rapidly over the last few decades, but this has, in turn, increased the opportunities for malpractices such as contamination or substitution of products with alternative plant species. A study into Echinacea herbal products showed that 11% had no Echinacea present [1]. DNA barcoding is a technique used for authentication of herbal medicines due to its potential as a highly specific and cost-effective tool, but as of yet there is no a validated standard procedure for E. purpurea authentication, and this project aims to fill this gap.

The full chloroplast genomes of the nine Echinacea species present on the NCBI database have been studied to find differences and potential regions for primers design to be used for Barcode High Resolution Melting (Bar-HRM) analysis. Six out of nine Echinacea species have been sourced and grown from seeds to test the specificity of the primers. The newly designed primers have been tested against DNA extracted from these plants and against over the counter Echinacea products.

The results showed that Bar-HRM assay could be used to identify Echinacea at a species level. It also proved the potential for these techniques to be used in not just pure samples but also in processed samples with multiple plant components.

Publication History

Article published online:
13 December 2021

• References

• 1 Raclariu AC.. et al. (2018) 10.1016/j.phymed.2018.03.058