A sensitive and robust DNA method for authenticity determination of Glehnia littoralis F. Schmidt ex Miq. and its commercial products

Abstract

Glehnia littoralis F. Schmidt ex Miq. has been widely recognized for its comprehensive nutritional properties and pharmaceutical effects. However, the adulteration practices with cheaper or very similar species in its commercial products lead to unfair market competition and severe health risks to the consumers. In this study, two species-specific PCR systems were constructed for molecular discrimination of G. littoralis from its adulterants based on the single nucleotide (SNP) markers exploited from ribosomal ITS and chloroplast trnL-F regions, respectively. The species-specific PCR assay utilizing trnL-F region was able to detect 0.1% of intentional adulteration of genomic DNA with a detection limit of 0.01 ng. The developed method, mitigating the adverse effects of DNA degradation and false negative results, was proved to be effective for botanical origin authentication of G. littoralis commercial products in a single reaction. Therefore the present study provides a sensitive and robust DNA method for authenticity determination of G. littoralis and its commercial products, and the established method can be employed to determine the authenticity and adulteration of other herbal products with high accuracy and reliability.