Abstract
Authentication of medicinal materials by deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) technology is gaining popularity. In 2010, our team has created Medicinal Materials DNA Barcode Database (MMDBD) version 1.0 to provide an interactive database for documenting DNA barcode sequences of medicinal materials. This database now contains DNA barcode sequences of medicinal materials listed in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, Dietary Supplements Compendium and Herbal Medicine Compendium of the US Pharmacopoeia and selected adulterants. The data archive is regularly updated and currently it stores 62 011 DNA sequences of 2111 medicinal materials. Our team has recently completed the major improvement on the interfaces and incorporated essential bioinformatics tools to facilitate the authentication work. MMDBD version 1.5 contains detailed information of each medicinal material including their material names, medical part, pharmacopeia information, biological classification in rank of family and status on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species, if any. DNA sequences can be retrieved by search in Latin scientific name, Chinese name, family name, material name, medical part and simplified Chinese character stroke. A `BLAST’-based engine for searching DNA sequences is included in the MMDBD version 1.5. Since primer design is a key step in DNA barcoding authentication, we have integrated the `Clustal Omega alignment tool’ and `Primer3’ in the form of web interface. These new tools facilitate multiple sequence comparison and the design of primers for amplification of a target DNA barcode region, allowing DNA barcoding authentication.
Highlights
Herbal materials have been used by many cultures for thousands of years
Medicinal species listed in the Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China (2015 edition) [13], American Herbal Pharmacopoeia, Dietary Supplements Compendium and Herbal Medicines Compendium of the United States Pharmacopeia [14] as well as prescriptions of folk medicine and selected adulterants and closely related species were included in the database
A ‘one stop, three steps approach’ was developed in the Medicinal Materials DNA Barcode Database (MMDBD) version 1.5 to facilitate the transaction of sequences among three major tools, ‘BLAST’, ‘Clustal Omega’ and ‘Primer3’ for designing polymerase chain reaction primer (Figure 1)
Summary
Herbal materials have been used by many cultures for thousands of years. With the rise of the trend of natural living, the use of herbal materials as medicine and/or dietary supplements becomes more popular. The output of Chinese materia medica amounted to CNY 125.9 billion in 2013, with a 26.9% increase from the previous year In the USA, the total sale of herbal dietary supplements in 2016 have increased by 7.7% to USD 7.452 billion [1]. The 2015 edition of Chinese Pharmacopoeia includes 2598 monographs about medicinal materials. Use of misidentified/adulterant herbs has been known to cause poisoning, including liver injury [2] and aristolochic acid nephropathy [3,4]
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