Planta Med 2001; 67(8): 784-786
DOI: 10.1055/s-2001-18341
Letter

© Georg Thieme Verlag Stuttgart · New York

A Molecular Marker that is Specific to Medicinal Rhubarb Based on Chloroplast trnL/trnF Sequences

Meihua Yang1, 2 , Daming Zhang1,*, Jianquan Liu3 , Junhua Zheng2
  • 1 Laboratory of Systematic & Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
  • 2 School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
  • 3 Northwest Plateau Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qinghai, China
Further Information

Publication History

October 17, 2000

January 21, 2001

Publication Date:
09 November 2001 (online)

Abstract

”Da-Huang” (Radix et Rhizoma Rhei, medicinal rhubarb), a famous and important Traditional Chinese Medicine, has often been confused with the adulterant species in the same genus, Rheum. Through sequencing the trnL (UAA)/trnF (GAA) regions of chloroplast DNA of thirteen species of Rheum (three medicinal rhubarb species and ten adulterant ones), a molecular marker of the medicinal species was found. A pair of PCR primers based on the sequences, was thus designed, which amplified a highly specific DNA fragment in medicinal rhubarb exclusively, and absent in the adulterants at all under an optimized PCR condition.

References

  • 1 Kao T C, Cheng C Y. Synopsis of the Chinese Rheum .  Acta Phytotaxonomica Sinica. 1975;  13 69-82
  • 2 Li A. R. Flora Reipublicae Popularis Sinicae. Tomus 25 (1). Beijing; Science Press 1998: 167-209
  • 3 Chin T C, Youngken H W. The cytotaxonomy of Rheum .  American Journal of Botany. 1947;  34 401-7
  • 4 Wang X, Lou Z C, Mikage M, Namba T. Pharmacognostical studies on the Chinese Crude Drug ”Da-huang (Rhubarb)” (II). Botanical Origin of Three Unofficial Da-huang.  Shoyakugaku Zasshi. 1988;  42 302-9
  • 5 Tan Y X, Yang Y, Yan Y H. The quality control of ten species of rhubarb-qualitative and quantitative analysis of aglycone of anthraquinone glucosides.  Chinese Journal of Pharmaceutical Analysis. 1983;  3 74-8
  • 6 Li J D, Zhang J. Investigation on origin and quality of commodities of rhubarb.  Chinese Journal of Pharmaceutical Analysis. 1983;  3 333-8
  • 7 Luo D S, Zuo Z C, Xia G C, Liu L. Application of Rheum from the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau in Tibetan medicine.  Chinese Traditional and Herbal Drugs. 1985;  16 31-3
  • 8 Nonaka G ., Minami M ., Nishioka I. Studies on rhubarb (Rhei Rhizoma). III. Stilbene glycosides.  Chemical & Pharmaceutical Bulletin. 1977;  25 2300-5
  • 9 Guo J X, Shen G Q. The quality analysis of ten species of rhubarb.  The Research of Chinese Traditional Patent Medicine. 1980;  1 5-6
  • 10 Gupta P K, Varshney R K, Sharma P C, Ramesh B. Molecular markers and their applications in wheat breeding.  Plant Breeding. 1999;  118 369-90
  • 11 Ngan F, Shaw P, But P, Wang J. Molecular authentication of Panax species.  Phytochemistry. 1999;  50 787-91
  • 12 Cai Z H, Li P, Dong T TX, Tsim K WK. Molecular diversity of 5S-rRNA spacer domain in Fritillaria species revealed by PCR analysis.  Planta Medica. 1999;  65 360-4
  • 13 Fushimi H, Komatsu K, Isobe M, Namba T. Application of PCR-RFLP and MASA analyses on 18S ribosomal RNA gene sequence for the identification of three Ginseng drugs.  Biological & Pharmaceutical Bulletin. 1997;  20 765-9
  • 14 Zheng J H. Pharmacognosy. Beijing; The people’s Health Publishing House 1999: 199-203
  • 15 Xie Z W, Ge S, Hong D Y. Preparation of DNA from silica gel dried mini-amount of leaves of Oryza rufipogon for RAPD study and total DNA bank construction.  Acta Botanica Sinica. 1999;  41 807-12
  • 16 Olmstead R G, Palmer J D. Chloroplast DNA systematics: A review of methods and data analysis.  American Journal of Botany. 1994;  81 1205-24
  • 17 Taberlet P, Gielly L, Pautou G, Bouvet J. Universal primers for amplification of three non-coding regions of chloroplast DNA.  Plant Molecular Biology. 1991;  17 1105-9
  • 18 Shinozaki K, Ohme M, Tanaka M, Wakasugi T, Hayashida N, Matsubayashi T, Zaita N, Chunwongse J, Obokata J, Yamaguchi-Sinozaki K, Ohto C, Torazawa K, Meng B Y, Sugita M, Deno H, Kamogashira T, Yamada K, Kusuda J, Takaiwa F, Kato A, Tohdoh N, Shimada H, Sugiura M. The complete nucleotide sequence of the tobacco chloroplast genome: its gene organization and expression.  The EMBO Journal. 1986;  5 2043-9
  • 19 Hiratsuka J, Shimada H, Whittier R, Ishibashi T, Sakamoto M, Mori M, Kondo C, Honji Y, Sun C R, Meng B Y, Li Y Q, Kanno A, Nishizawa Y, Hirai A, Shinozaki K, Sugiura M. The complete sequence of the rice (Oryza sativa) chloroplast genome: Intermolecular recombination between distinct tRNA genes accounts for a major plastid DNA inversion during the evolution of the cereals.  Molecular and General Genetics. 1989;  217 185-94
  • 20 Thompson J D, Higgins D G, Gibson T J, Clustal W. Improving the sensitivity of progressive multiple sequence alignment through sequence weighting, position-specific gap penalties and weight matrix choice.  Nucleic Acids Research. 1994;  22 4673-80

Dr. Daming Zhang

Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany

Institute of Botany

CAS

Xiangshan

Beijing 100093

People's Republic of China

Fax: +86-10-62590843

Email: zhangdm@ns.ibcas.ac.cn