earticle

영어

Accurate authentication of herbal drugs is always required to distinguish the official herbal medicine from intentional and inadvertent adulteration with other plant species. Morphological and histochemical authentication are usually applied but they are not precise enough to authenticate these herbal materials which are possibly substituted or adulterated by plants with similar shapes and tissue structure. Therefore, molecular authentication methods were developed from DNA manipulation techniques including comparative analysis of molecular markers and sequencing of specified genes has been applied to the authentication of medicinal materials. To authenticate the origin of diverse herbal types for Cynanchi Wilfordii Radix (Baekshuoh in Korean and Beishuwu in Chinese) in species levels, we applied SCAR markers using multiplex-PCR. The multiplex-SCAR amplifications was provided by a key tools for the identification of correct species in varied herbal materials of Baekshuoh. Therefore, a well-established molecular discrimination marker is a rapid, reliable, and efficient method for the identification of medicinal plant species and the standardization of inauthentic herbal medicines.