title: Prospects and Problems for Identification of Poisonous Plants in China using DNA Barcodes.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Poisonous plants are a deadly threat to public health in China. The traditional clinical diagnosis of the toxic plants is inefficient, fallible, and dependent upon experts. In this study, we tested the performance of DNA barcodes for identification of the most threatening poisonous plants in China.
  
  
  METHODS
  Seventy-four accessions of 27 toxic plant species in 22 genera and 17 families were sampled and three DNA barcodes (matK, rbcL, and ITS) were amplified, sequenced and tested. Three methods, Blast, pairwise global alignment (PWG) distance, and Tree-Building were tested for discrimination power.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The primer universality of all the three markers was high. Except in the case of ITS for Hemerocallis minor, the three barcodes were successfully generated from all the selected species. Among the three methods applied, Blast showed the lowest discrimination rate, whereas PWG Distance and Tree-Building methods were equally effective. The ITS barcode showed highest discrimination rates using the PWG Distance and Tree-Building methods. When the barcodes were combined, discrimination rates were increased for the Blast method.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  DNA barcoding technique provides us a fast tool for clinical identification of poisonous plants in China. We suggest matK, rbcL, ITS used in combination as DNA barcodes for authentication of poisonous plants.
authors.affiliation: College of Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Institute of Botany, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China.
authors.forename: Ying Wei
authors.initials: YW
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: School of Agricultural Forestry and Environmental Sciences Forest Resources, Clemson University, South Carolina 29634, USA.
authors.forename: Shan Yue
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Guan
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Occupational Health and Poison Control, China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 100050, China.
authors.forename: Li Jing
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Occupational Health and Poison Control, China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 100050, China.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Long
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Occupational Health and Poison Control, China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 100050, China.
authors.forename: Cheng Ye
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Sun
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D058893:DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic / Q000592:standards*; D017931:DNA Primers / Q000235:genetics; D021901:DNA, Intergenic / Q000235:genetics*; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D010947:Plants, Toxic / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics*; D012273:Ribulose-Bisphosphate Carboxylase / Q000235:genetics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013045:Species Specificity
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers; D021901:DNA, Intergenic; D010940:Plant Proteins; C101625:RbcL protein, plastid; D012273:Ribulose-Bisphosphate Carboxylase
keywords: DNA barcoding; DmatK; ITS; Poisonous plants; rbcL