Identification of the Medicinal Plants in Aconitum L. by DNA Barcoding Technique

Abstract

Plants of the genus Aconitum L. are commonly used in Asia for medicinal purposes. Although they are widely cultivated and marketed, there has been uncertainty about the efficacy of different species, and therefore accurate identification is crucial. To determine the genetic variation among these medicinal plants, the proposed DNA barcode psbA-trnH intergenic spacer of 134 individuals from 19 taxa of Aconitum were sequenced. Among the two most commonly used medicinal Aconitum species, A. carmichaeli and A. kusnezoffii, sequence inversions were observed. The studied samples were clustered into ten groups according to the sequence alignment and most of the tested Aconitum species could be differentiated by the psbA-trnH intergenic spacer.

Ranunculaceae - Aconitum - psbA‐trnH - DNA barcoding

References

• 1 Li L Q, Kadota Y. Aconitum L. Wu ZY, Raven PH Flora of China, Vol. 6. Beijing; Science Press St. Louis; Missouri Botanical Garden Press 2001: 149-222
• 2 Bisset N G. Arrow poisons in China (Part II): Aconitum – botany, chemistry, and pharmacology.  J Ethnopharmacol. 1981;  4 247-336
• 3 Chen S Y, Jiang Z H. The medicinal plant resources of Chinese Aconitum and Delphinium.  Acta Bot Yunn. 1988;  (Suppl. I) 63-76
• 4 Xiao P G, Wang F P, Gao F, Yan L P, Chen D L, Liu Y. A pharmacophylogenetic study of Aconitum L. (Ranunculaceae) from China.  Acta Phytotaxon Sin. 2006;  44 1-46
• 5 Suzuki Y, Oyama T, Ishige A, Isono T, Asami A, Ikeda Y, Noguchi M, Omiya Y. Antinociceptive mechanism of the aconitine alkaloids mesaconitine and benzoylmesaconine.  Planta Med. 1994;  60 391-394
• 6 Hikino H, Konno C, Takata H, Yamada Y, Yamada C, Ohizumi Y, Sugio K, Fujimura H. Anti-inflammatory principles of Aconitum roots.  J Pharmacobiodyn. 1980;  3 514-525
• 7 Sato H, Yamada C, Konno C, Ohizumi Y, Endo K, Hikino H. Pharmacological actions of aconitine alkaloids.  Tohoku J Exp Med. 1979;  128 175-187
• 8 Desai H K, Hart B P, Caldwell R W, Huang J H, Pelletier S W. Certain norditerpenoid alkaloids and their cardiovascular action.  J Nat Prod. 1998;  61 743-748
• 9 Poon W T, Lai C K, Ching C K, Tse K Y, So Y C, Chan Y C, Hau L M, Mak T W, Chan A Y. Aconite poisoning in camouflage.  Hong Kong Med J. 2006;  12 456-459
• 10 Terui K, Fujita Y, Takei M, Aoki H, Endo S. Relationship between serum aconitines level and clinical features of aconite poisoning.  J Tradit Med. 2008;  25 67-73
• 11 Yue H, Pi Z F, Song F R, Liu Z Q, Cai Z W, Liu S Y. Studies on the aconitine-type alkaloids in the roots of Aconitum carmichaeli Debx. by HPLC/ESIMS/MS.  Talanta. 2009;  77 1800-1807
• 12 Xie Y, Zhou H, Wong Y, Liu Z Q, Xu H X, Jiang Z H, Liu L. An optimized high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for benzoylmesaconine determination in Radix Aconiti Lateralis Preparata (Fuzi, aconite roots) and its products.  Chin Med. 2008;  3 6
• 13 Zhao Y Y, Zhang Y M, Lin R C, Sun W J. An expeditious HPLC method to distinguish Aconitum kusnezoffii from related species.  Fitoterapia. 2009;  80 333-338
• 14 Xue C Y, Li D Z, Lu J M, Yang J B, Liu J Q. Molecular authentication of the traditional Tibetan medicinal plant Swertia mussotii.  Planta Med. 2006;  72 1223-1226
• 15 Techen N, Khan I A, Pan Z Q, Scheffler B E. The use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the identification of Ephedra DNA in dietary supplements.  Planta Med. 2006;  72 241-247
• 16 Vongsak B, Kengtong S, Vajrodaya S, Sukrong S. Sequencing analysis of the medicinal plant Stemona tuberose and five related species existing in Thailand based on trnH-psbA chloroplast DNA.  Planta Med. 2008;  74 1764-1766
• 17 Kress W J, Wurdack K J, Zimmer E A, Weigt L A, Janzen D H. Use of DNA barcodes to identify flowering plants.  Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2005;  102 8369-8374
• 18 Hollingsworth M L, Clark A, Forrest L L, Richardson J, Pennington R T, Long D G, Cowan R, Chase M W, Gaudeul M, Hollingsworth P M. Selecting barcoding loci for plants: evaluation of seven candidate loci with species-level sampling in three divergent groups of land plants.  Mol Ecol Res. 2009;  9 439-457
• 19 Storchova H, Olson M S. The architecture of the chloroplast psbA-trnH non-coding region in angiosperms.  Plant Syst Evol. 2007;  268 235-256
• 20 Doyle J. DNA protocols for plants – CTAB total DNA isolation. Hewitt GM, Johnston A Molecular techniques in taxonomy. Berlin; Springer 1991: 283-293
• 21 Shaw J, Lickey E B, Beck J T, Farmer S B, Liu W S, Miller J, Siripum K C, Winder C T, Schilling E E, Small R L. The tortoise and the hare II: relative utility of 21 noncoding chloroplast DNA sequences for phylogenetic analysis.  Am J Bot. 2005;  92 142-166
• 22 Tamura K, Dudley J, Nei M, Kumar S. MEGA4: molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis (MEGA) software version 4.0.  Mol Biol Evol. 2007;  24 1596-1599
• 23 Zhonghua Bencao Editorial Committee .Zhonghua Bencao. Shanghai; Shanghai Sciencetific & Technical Publishers 1999
• 24 Wang M Z, Xiao P G, Gao F Y, Li B L. Biological investigation and chemical analysis of big aconites and vine aconites.  Acta Pharmacol Sin. 1983;  18 929-933
• 25 Chinese Pharmacopoeia Commission .Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China, Vol. 1. Beijing; People's Medical Publishing House 2005: 185-188
• 26 Kadota Y. A revision of Aconitum subgenus Aconitum (Ranunculaceae) of East Asia. Utsunomiya; Sanwa Shoyaku Company 1987: 96-98
• 27 Tang Y Z, Li Y B. The new opinions of Szechuan aconite.  Chin J Pract Chin Mod Med. 2005;  18 1220-1221
• 28 Luo Y, Zhang F M, Yang Q E. Phylogeny of Aconitum subgenus Aconitum (Ranunculaceae) inferred from ITS sequences.  Plant Syst Evol. 2005;  252 11-25
• 29 Bzymek M, Lovett S T. Evidence for two mechanisms of palindrome-stimulated deletion in Escherichia coli: single-strand annealing and replication slipped mispairing.  Genetics. 2001;  158 527-540