Differentiation of the traditional Chinese medicinal plants Euphorbia humifusa and E. maculata from adulterants by TaqMan real-time polymerase chain reaction

Authors Xue, Heng-Gang; Wang, Hong; Li, De-Zhu; Xue, Chun-Ying; Wang, Qing-Zhong

Journal PLANTA MEDICA , FEB 2008,3:74

DOI 10.1055/s-2008-1034305 PubMed 18266200

Abstract DNA sequence analysis of the rDNA internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS1) and TaqMan real-time polymerase chain reactionwere exploited for their applications in the differentiation of the traditional Chinese medicinal plants Euphorbia humifusa and E. maculata from three related adulterants E. hypericifolia, E. atoto and E. prostrata. The data demonstrated that variations in the ITS1 regions were very low at the intra-species level but extremely high at the inter-species level, so that they could be easily distinguished at the DNA level. The sequence difference allowed an effective and reliable differentiation of E. hurnifusa and E. maculata from the adulterants by TaqMan real-time PCR.