RESUMEN
Herbal medicines and botanicals have long been used as sole or additional medical aids worldwide. Currently, billions of dollars are spent on botanicals and related products, but minimal regulation exists regarding their purity, integrity, and efficacy. Cases of adulteration and contamination have led to severe illness and even death in some cases. Identifying the plant material in botanicals and phytomedicines using organoleptic means or through microscopic observation of plant parts is not trivial, and plants are often misidentified. Recently, DNA-based methods have been applied to these products because DNA is not changed by growth conditions unlike the chemical constituents of many active pharmaceutical agents. In recent years, DNA barcoding methods, which are used to identify species diversity in the Tree of Life, have been also applied to botanicals and plant-derived dietary supplements. In this review, we recount the history of DNA-based methods for identification of botanicals and discuss some of the difficulties in defining a specific bar code or codes to use. In addition, we describe how next generation sequencing technologies have enabled new techniques that can be applied to identifying these products with greater authority and resolution. Lastly, we present case histories where dietary supplements, decoctions, and other products have been shown to contain materials other than the main ingredient stipulated on the label. We conclude that there is a fundamental need for greater quality control in this industry, which if not self-imposed, that may result from legislation.
Asunto(s)
Botánica/métodos , Código de Barras del ADN Taxonómico/métodos , Suplementos Dietéticos/normas , Secuenciación de Nucleótidos de Alto Rendimiento/métodos , Plantas Medicinales/clasificación , ADN de Plantas/química , ADN de Plantas/genética , Suplementos Dietéticos/análisis , Contaminación de Medicamentos/prevención & control , Marcadores Genéticos/genética , Preparaciones de Plantas , Control de Calidad , Análisis de Secuencia de ADN/métodosRESUMEN
Botanical supplements for health enhancement are being increasingly used in the United States, but no safeguards are formally in place to ensure that they are not contaminated with non-efficacious or potentially harmful plant material. A molecular approach, which allows the authentication of botanical ingredients and detection of contaminating plant material by analyzing the ITS-1 region by PCR-RFLP and subsequent sequencing, is described. When using starting material from which DNA can be obtained, this method has the potential for identifying both primary and contaminating plant material in botanical dietary supplements.