Status of wild resource of medicine plant Lamiophlomis rotata and its problems in sustainable use / 中国中药杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>Lamiophlomis rotata is a common wild herb in Tibetan traditional medicine with important medicinal and economic value. The paper examines the wild distributions, exploitation regime, and situations.</p><p><b>METHOD</b>A variety of research methods, such as literature survey, specimens inspection, market information collection in major Chinese herbal markets, questionnaire of herbalists and employers of local governments and institutions, and field quadrat survey and AcrGIS as well, have been used for this work.</p><p><b>RESULT</b>Total stock of wild resources of L. rotata is ranging from 3 713.49 tons to 6 896.56 tons (2 519-3 314 t in Qinghai, 490-1 414 t in Gansu, 641-1 167 t in Sichuan, and 422-999 t in Tibet, respectively), acceptable harvest quantity of the herb is ranging from 908-1 675 t per year, and actual harvest quantity is 2 520 t annually far beyond the acceptable harvest quantity.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Harvesting quantity of L. rotata is far more than that of acceptable, suggesting that utilization pattern of this wild resource plant is unsustainable. L. rotata seems to act as an indicating plant of degraded ecosystem of high-altitude grassland, shrub grassland, and wetland, and distributes in those degraded and degrading plateau ecosystems, and the plant is facing with pressure of ecological protection and wild resource population degradation. Wild population monitoring and standard cultivation are of importance for although they are far from implementation due to shortage of related basic studies.</p>

High specific PCR identification of Bungarus multicinctus and its adulterants / 中国中药杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To develop a convenient and effective method for the identification of Bungarus multicinctus.</p><p><b>METHOD</b>Based on the sequence of Cyt b gene fragment of B. multicinctus and its adulterants, a pair of highly specific primer (HJL- and HJH-) were designed for distinguishing B. ulticinctus from other species of snake. To establish specific PCR reaction condition, the primers were employed to amplify the DNA templates extracted from B. multicinctus and 6 other species of snake, under different annealing temperature. Using this method, B. multicinctus was identified from 18 samples bought from many drugstores.</p><p><b>RESULT</b>A 230 bp DNA fragment was amplified from B. multicinctus in PCR with annealed temperature at 67 degrees C, whereas no DNA fragment was amplified from other snake samples under the same reaction condition, B. multicinctus could be clearly distinguished from others by PCR reaction with the highly specific primers. In the present study, 18 sample, bought from different drugstores, were also identified by the highly specific PCR with the primers. The results indicated that 14 samples were B. multicinctus and the other 4 were adulterant, which was consistent with the conclusion of authentication based on morphological.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The primers designed in the present study were highly specific for B. multicinctus.</p>