Abstract
Toxic plants have been a major threat to public health in China. However, identification and tracing of poisoned species with traditional methods are unreliable due to the destruction of plant morphology by cooking and chewing. DNA barcoding is independent of environmental factors and morphological limitations, making it a powerful tool to accurately identify species. In our study, a total of 83 materials from 26 genera and 31 species of 13 families were collected and 13 plant materials were subjected to simulated gastric fluid digestion. Four markers (rbcL, trnH-psbA, matK, and ITS) were amplified and sequenced for all untreated and mock-digested samples. The effectiveness of DNA barcoding for the identification of toxic plants was assessed using Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) method, PWG-Distance method, and Tree-Building (NJ) method. Except for the matK region, the amplification success rate of the remaining three regions was high, but the sequencing of trnH-psbA and ITS was less satisfactory. Meanwhile, matK was prone to be more difficult to amplify and sequence because of simulated gastric fluid. Among the three methods applied, BLAST method showed lower recognition rates, while PWG-Distance and Tree-Building methods showed little difference in recognition rates. Overall, ITS had the highest recognition rate among individual loci. Among the combined loci, rbcL + ITS had the highest species recognition rate. However, the ITS region may not be suitable for DNA analysis of gastric contents and the combination of loci does not significantly improve species resolution. In addition, identification of species to the genus level is sufficient to aid in the clinical management of most poisoning events. Considering primer versatility, DNA sequence quality, species identification ability, experimental cost and speed of analysis, we recommend rbcL as the best single marker for clinical identification and also suggest the BLAST method for analysis. Our current results suggest that DNA barcoding can rapidly identify and trace toxic species and has great potential for clinical applications. In addition, we suggest the creation of a proprietary database containing morphological, toxicological and molecular information to better apply DNA barcoding technology in clinical diagnostics.
Highlights
As primary producers, plants have always been an important source of nutrition for humans
The anti-digoxin Fab fragment, which is a safe and effective treatment for severe arrhythmias caused by yellow oleander (Eddleston et al, 2000), and physostigmine is the antidote of choice for severe poisoning by Datura (Doan et al, 2019)
Species identification has been a difficult task in poison detection. 39.41% of the food poisoning cases reported by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in China from 2008 to 2010 were considered to be of unknown origin (Chu et al, 2012)
Summary
Plants have always been an important source of nutrition for humans. Poisoning caused by different plants requires variable treatment. The anti-digoxin Fab fragment, which is a safe and effective treatment for severe arrhythmias caused by yellow oleander (Eddleston et al, 2000), and physostigmine is the antidote of choice for severe poisoning by Datura (Doan et al, 2019). Species identification has been a difficult task in poison detection. 39.41% of the food poisoning cases reported by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in China from 2008 to 2010 were considered to be of unknown origin (Chu et al, 2012). Clinicians collect food residues, vomit from patients, and make a diagnosis by morphological analysis of plant fragments (Müller and Desel, 2013). Clinical identification based on traditional morphology is difficult. The recently proposed DNA barcoding technique is a possible solution to this problem
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