title: Identification of medicinal vines by ITS2 using complementary discrimination methods.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Medicinal vines listed in Chinese pharmacopoeia possess important medicinal efficacy in traditional Chinese medicines.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The ITS2 region, which has several characteristics that make it a valuable DNA barcode, was studied to discriminate the stems of medicinal vines to confirm their identities and ensure their safe application in pharmaceuticals by using complementary discrimination methods.
  
  
  METHODS
  Complementary discrimination methods were performed on two datasets, including 393 samples of 170 species from 22 genera 13 families, which belonged to medicinal vines and their adulterants. Based on the primary ITS2 sequences, three main discrimination methods (phylogenetic tree, the nearest distance, and BLAST 1) were adopted to identify species. Moreover, we applied both two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) structures of ITS2 to differentiate species.
  
  
  RESULTS
  ITS2 performed well, with over 95.0% of species and 100% of genera being correctly differentiated for the two datasets. All results showed that the ITS2 region unveiled a remarkable ability to identify closely related species within different families and genera.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings supported that the ITS2 region was an efficient marker for authentication of medicinal vines.
authors.affiliation: Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100193, PR China. zhliu@implad.ac.cn
authors.forename: Zhihua
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Xu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Guomin
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.forename: Guiyan
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chu
authors.forename: Zhengrong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.forename: Kun
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Peigen
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.forename: Shilin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D058893:DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic; D018744:DNA, Plant / Q000032:analysis*; D030561:Databases, Nucleic Acid; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D020834:Ethnopharmacology; D005819:Genetic Markers; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional; D008958:Models, Molecular; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D010802:Phylogeny; D008517:Phytotherapy; D028321:Plant Preparations / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D018547:Plant Stems; D010946:Plants, Medicinal / Q000737:chemistry / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction
chemical_list: D018744:DNA, Plant; D005819:Genetic Markers; D028321:Plant Preparations