Abstract
Morphological resemblance among Cymbopogon distans species and their adulterants which are procured from different markets in the form of dried or fresh plant tissues represents a serious problem for quality and safety of medicinal plants, as it supports frauds for substitution. In order to assure the quality control of C. distans species, DNA barcode, microscopic identification and High Performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) fingerprint were synergistically used to discriminate C. distans from its adulterants. In this work, the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) was chosen for distinguishing C. distans from their usual adulterants from 5 provinces of China. Sequences were obtained after removal of the 5.8S and 28S sections. A multiple sequence alignment was finalized. Results exhibited that ITS2 performed well, with 100% of genera being accurately distinguished. Additionally, finding indicates that the upper epidermis in leaf of C. distans was composed of one layer of wide elongated cells called Bulliform cells whereas in C. distans the upper epidermis consist of one layer cell, thus these feactures are very important for the anatomy identification. The HPLC fingerprint method was also developed, the similarities of 6 batches of C. distans samples were all more than 0.93, indicating that the samples from different geographical origins shared similar HPLC fingerprints. And the similarities between C. distans, C. citratus, C. flexuosus and Imperata cylindrica were all less than 0.93, suggesting that there was significance difference between C. distans and its adulterants. Finally, it was concluded that the DNA barcode, HPLC fingerprint and microscopic methods could effectively authenticate the quality of C. distans from their adulterants and can provide accurate and reliable information to tackle the complex quality issue of C. distans in markets. This is the first report of detailed analysis of the C. distans for effective quality and safety.
Highlights
Cymbopogon, commonly known as lemongrass in English, is one of the most important medicinal plants of the family Poaceae [1]
C. citratus has simple leaf, alternate and linear. Their length and width were in the range of 62 to 70 cm and from 2 to 5 mm, respectively while having sheathed and apex acute (Figure 1A); it has a color of light green on upper and lower surface and has an entire margin and parallel venation compared with the morphology of C. flexuosus as the leaves length range from 82 to 120 cm, and the width from 5-19 mm (Figure 1B)
The leaves size of C. distans was smaller than C. citratus and C. flexuosus, the venation of C. citratus and C. flexuous was parallel but the venation of C. distans was folded while the length and the width of Imperata cylindrica range from 50 to 100 cm and from 0.8-2 cm, respectively (Figure 1D)
Summary
Cymbopogon, commonly known as lemongrass in English, is one of the most important medicinal plants of the family Poaceae [1]. The genus Cymbopogon encompasses 140 species mainly distributed in tropical and semi-temperate regions of Asia, South America, Autstralia and Africa. It is extensively recognized for producing high value aromatic oils and important components such as allantoin for industries, which find large use in perfumery, cosmetics, and in the pharmaceutical industries [1,2,3]. Cymbopogon species exhibits a large variation in morphological characteristics and essential oil composition at inter and intra specific levels [4]. Cymbopogon distans medicinal materials are collected from wild, making its quality of unstable. C. distans and its adulterants were discriminated mainly using morphological characteristics by experienced or trained experts.
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