Molecular Identification of Persicae Semen and Its Sibling Species Based on ITS2 Sequence / 世界科学技术-中医药现代化

ABSTRACT

Objective: To identify Persicae Semen and its sibling species, and to secure the quality and clinical safety of this medicinal material. Methods: The internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) of nuclear ribosomal DNA of Persicae Semen and its sibling species were amplified and bidirectionally sequenced by DNA barcoding. Sequence assembly and consensus sequence generation were performed by the CodonCode Aligner 4.1. The genetic distances were computed by MEGA 5.0 in accordance with the Kimura 2-parameter (K2P) model, and the phylogenetic tree constructed by the neighbor-joining (NJ) method. Results: The length of ITS2 sequences of the two origin plants of Persicae Semen was between 212 bp to 213 bp. Their intraspecific genetic distance was much lower than the interspecific genetic distance with their sibling species. The ITS2 sequence possessed the character of good stability and low intra-specific sequence variation. In the NJ tree, both Prunus persica and P. davidiana were clustered into one large branch, and clearly separated with their sibling species. Conclusion: ITS2 can be used to effectively distinguish Persicae Semen from its sibling species, which can provide a reference for the iden-tification of other Chinese medicine and its sibling species.