ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to test the ability of DNA barcoding to identify the herbal raw trade of Tibetan medicine Dida in China. A reference database for plant-material DNA barcodes was successfully constructed and used to identify 36 commercially samples of Dida collected from Southwest China. The ITS sequence was amplified from these samples and the efficiency of the PCR amplification of ITS was 100%. The DNA sequencing results revealed that 3 samples (8.3%) were authenticated as Swertia chirayita, 2 sequences (5.6%) were authenticated as Swertia mussotii, 3 sequences (8.3%) were authenticated as Swertia ciliata, as recorded in the Tibetan Pharmacopeia. The other samples were authenticated as adulterants and all of them originated from common plants belonging to Saxifraga, Swertia and Halenia. This result indicates Dida pieces that are available in the market have complex origins and may indicate a potential safety issue and DNA barcoding is a convenient tool for market supervision.