Identification of Junci Medulla using DNA barcoding technique / 中国中药杂志

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To identify Junci Medulla using the ITS2 barcode.</p><p><b>METHOD</b>The ITS2 regions of Juncus effuses and its closely related species were PCR amplified and sequenced. Sequence assembly and consensus sequence generation were performed using the CodonCode Aligner. The Kimura 2-Parameter (K2P) distances were calculated using software MEGA 5.0. Identification analyses were performed using BLAST1, Nearest Distance, PWG Distance and neighbor-joining (NJ) methods.</p><p><b>RESULT</b>The intra-specific genetic distances of J. effuses were ranged from 0 to 0.005, which were far lower than inter-specific genetic distances between J. effuses and its closely related species (0.215-0.614). All the four methods showed that ITS2 could discriminate J. effuses from its closely related species correctly.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The ITS2 region is an efficient barcode for authentication of Junci Medulla, and our study further confirmed the ability of ITS2 to identify traditional Chinese medicinal materials.</p>