Relationship between DNA Barcoding and Chemical Classification of Salvia L. Medicinal Herbs

In China, over 20 Salvia species have been used as Danshen in traditional folk medicine [1]. The rapid and accurate identification of species is critical to Salvia L. medicinal herbs. DNA barcodes and chemical fingerprint are two approaches that have recently garnered much attention [2,3]. Here we compared these two methods for identification of the genus of Savlia L. First, we sequenced the nucleotide sequences of the internal transcribed spacer region 2 amplified from 32 medicinal plants belonging to Salvia L. and seven other groups of labiatae medicinal plants. By using neighbor joining analyses, phylogenetic trees were mapped by their sequence diversity. Secondly, we tested the water-solution bioactive components (Rosmarinic acid, Lithospermic acid and Salvianalic acid B.) and lipid soluble components (TanshinoneI and Cryptotanshinone) of every sample by HPLC. Additionally, we compared the relationship between the sequence of ITS2 and the components of every branch in NJ tree, and found regular relationship between them. By contrast, DNA barcoding was sequencing-based and therefore could provide more accurate and fast results in large-scale studies. This is the first paper to show the relationship between DNA barcoding and chemical components. Acknowledgements: Thanks go to the International Cooperation Program of Science and Technology (No. 2007DFA30990) and the Special Founding for Healthy Field (No. 200802043), for supporting the study. References: [1] Li, MH, et al. (2008) J Ethnopharmacol, DOI: 10.1016/j.jep.2008.09.013. [2] Miller SE (2007) PNAS, 104: 4775–4776. [3] Lahaye R, et al. (2008) PNAS, 105: 2923–2928.