Detection of <i>Arisaema yunnanense</i> as adulterant of traditional medicine <i>Pinellia ternata</I> using allele-specific diagnostic polymerase chain reaction (PCR)

Abstract

The dried tubers of Pinellia ternata (Araceae) have been widely used in traditional Chinese, Japanese and Korean medicine. Recently, Pinellia tuber has been found to be adulterated with Arisaema yunnanense in south West China due to its natural resource deficiency. To distinguish between Pinellia tuber and A. yunnanense, the chloroplast atpB-rbcL intergenic spacers of P. ternata and A. yunnanense were sequenced and analyzed, and two pairs of diagnostic primers were designed for differentiating P. ternata from A. yunnanense. The amount of A. yunnanense that can be identified as an adulterant of Pinellia tuber was also investigated. A minimum amount (1:200) of the adulterant was detected in the sensitivity tests. The present study provides a simple, reliable and sensitive method to authenticate Pinellia tuber, and to detect whether it has been adulterated with A. yunnanense.

Keywords: Pinellia ternata, Arisaema yunnanense, Araceae, molecular authentication, diagnostic polymeras chain reaction (PCR), atpB-rbcL