Abstract
BackgroundKorean ginseng has long been famous and is one of the most well known forms of ginseng. The root of plants in the genus Panax is commonly recognized as ginseng. Different Panax species of ginseng root have been used as treatments. Although many other herbs are called ginseng, they do not contain the active compounds of ginsenosides. In Thailand, we have Thai ginseng which is of course not one of Panax species. Thai ginseng is the root from Talinum paniculatum and, due to its morphological root similarity, it is almost impossible to differentiate between them. Also, another plant species, Phytollacca americana, has significantly similar root morphology to real ginseng but its seeds and root are poisonous. Misunderstanding what true ginseng is compared to others could endanger lives and cause financial loss by buying inferior products.MethodsDNA barcoding combination with High Resolution Melting (called Bar-HRM) was used for species discrimination of the Panax ginseng and others. Five regions included ITS2, matK, psbA-trnH and rbcL were evaluated in the analyses.ResultsThe ITS2 region was found to be the most suitable primers for the analysis. The melting profile from the HRM analyses using the chosen ITS2 primers showed that Korean ginseng (Panax ginseng) could be discriminated from other Penax species. Also, other ginseng species with morphological similarity could be easily distinguished from the true ginseng. The developed Bar-HRM method poses a great potential in ginseng species discrimination and thus could be also useful in ginseng authentication.
Highlights
The root of plants in the genus Panax, with the presence of ginsenosides and gintonin are typically recognized as ginseng
We furthered our database searches with the words ‘method’ and ‘technique’ and found that only 39 articles from 1,927 Panax published articles focusing on the method or technique used for species authentication/identification/discrimination
The High Resolution Melting (HRM) results from this study showed that the rbcL and trnL cannot be used to distinguish the Panax ginseng from other related species
Summary
The root of plants in the genus Panax, with the presence of ginsenosides and gintonin are typically recognized as ginseng. Bar-HRM: a reliable and fast method for species identification of ginseng (Panax ginseng, Panax notoginseng, Talinum paniculatum and Phytolacca Americana). There is some overlap in their uses, the main active compounds in ginseng from other plant genus or families differ markedly from those of Panax ginseng (ginsenosides). Thai ginseng is the root from Talinum paniculatum and, due to its morphological root similarity, it is almost impossible to differentiate between them Another plant species, Phytollacca americana, has significantly similar root morphology to real ginseng but its seeds and root are poisonous. The melting profile from the HRM analyses using the chosen ITS2 primers showed that Korean ginseng (Panax ginseng ) could be discriminated from other Penax species. The developed Bar-HRM method poses a great potential in ginseng species discrimination and could be useful in ginseng authentication
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