DNA Barcoding of St. Johnʼs wort (Hypericum spp.) Growing Wild in North-Eastern Greece

Ioanna Pyrka; Anastasia Stefanaki; Konstantinos E. Vlachonasios

doi:10.1055/a-1379-3249

Planta Medica, Table of Contents

Planta Med 2021; 87(07): 528-537
DOI: 10.1055/a-1379-3249

Natural Product Chemistry and Analytical Studies

Original Papers

DNA Barcoding of St. Johnʼs wort (Hypericum spp.) Growing Wild in North-Eastern Greece

Ioanna Pyrka

¹Postgraduate Studies Program, Conservation of Biodiversity and Sustainable Exploitation of Native Plants (BNP), School of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

,

Anastasia Stefanaki

²Biosystematics Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands

,

Konstantinos E. Vlachonasios

¹Postgraduate Studies Program, Conservation of Biodiversity and Sustainable Exploitation of Native Plants (BNP), School of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

³Department of Botany, School of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

⁴Natural Products Research Centre of Excellence (NatPro-AUTh), Center of Interdisciplinary Research and Innovation of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (CIRI-AUTh), Thessaloniki, Greece

› Author Affiliations

Abstract

Plants of the genus Hypericum, commonly known as “St. Johnʼs wort” (“spathohorto” or “valsamo” in Greek), have been used since antiquity for their therapeutic properties. Wild-harvested Hypericum plants are still popular today in herbal medicines, commercially exploited due to their bioactive compounds, hypericin and hyperforin, which have antidepressant, antimicrobial and antiviral activity. Species identification of commercial products is therefore important and DNA barcoding, a molecular method that uses small sequences of organismsʼ genome as barcodes, can be useful in this direction. In this study, we collected plants of the genus Hypericum that grow wild in North-Eastern Greece and explored the efficiency of matK, and trnH-psbA regions as DNA barcodes for their identification. We focused on 5 taxa, namely H. aucheri, H. montbretii, H. olympicum, H. perforatum subsp. perforatum, and H. thasium, the latter a rare Balkan endemic species collected for the first time from mainland Greece. matK (using the genus-specific primers designed herein), trnH-psbA, and their combination were effectively used for the identification of the 5 Hypericum taxa and the discrimination of different H. perforatum subsp. perforatum populations. These barcodes were also able to discriminate Greek populations of H. perforatum, H. aucheri, H. montbretii, and H. olympicum from populations of the same species growing in other countries.

Key words

Hypericaceae - Hypericum perforatum - Hypericum thasium - matK - Greek flora - trnH-psbA

Full Text

References

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Supporting Information