Published Paper Details:

Plants being important source of medicine used time immemorial to cure various arthritic problems. Also the efficacy of drugs elucidated from plant depends on proper identification of plants at molecular level. This behaves as reliable method when compared to morphological characteristics alone and avoids usage of incorrect plant leading to poisoning, side effects etc. DNA barcoding methods have been shown to be an effective tool for species authentication targeting specific genes from genomic DNA which is widely used in molecular plant taxonomy. Thus, the goal of our study was to perform field survey to collect anti-arthritic plants present in and around Dakshina Kannada, Karnataka and subject them for DNA barcoding technique to authenticate those medicinal plants. DNA samples were extracted from shortlisted 6 plants such as Cardiospermum helicacabum, Kirganelia reticulata, Pongamia pinnata, Scoparia dulcis, Urena lobata and Vitex negundo, chosen based on their therapeutic efficacy and usage in traditional medicine. MatK, ITS2, Rbcl and PetB genes were selected to be best molecular markers for identification purposes. The mentioned genes were amplified using PCR and subjected to Sanger sequencing. The sequences were screened in NCBI BLAST for species identification and phylogenetice analysis was studies using Clustal Omega. Our findings authenticated the plant species as well as to determine their closely related species. Hence, DNA barcoding technique acted as a potential and simple method to authenticate selected plants which had ethnobotanical claim to treat arthritis.