title: Commercialized non-Camellia tea: traditional function and molecular identification.
abstract: Non-Camellia tea is a part of the colorful Chinese tea culture, and is also widely used as beverage and medicine in folk for disease prevention and treatment. In this study, 37 samples were collected, including 33 kinds of non-Camellia teas and 4 kinds of teas (Camellia). Traditional functions of non-Camellia teas were investigated. Furthermore, non-Camellia teas of original plants were characterized and identified by molecular methods. Four candidate regions (rbcL, matK, ITS2, psbA-trnH) were amplified by polymerase chain reaction. In addition, DNA barcodes were used for the first time to discriminate the commercial non-Camellia tea and their adulterants, and to evaluate their safety. This study showed that BLASTN and the relevant phylogenetic tree are efficient tools for identification of the commercial non-Camellia tea and their adulterants. However, some sequences from original plants have not been found and there is a limitation of sequence number of original plants in GenBank. Submitting more original plant sequences to the GenBank will be helpful for evaluating the safety of non-Camellia teas.
authors.affiliation: National Resource Center for Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 100700, China ; Baotou Medical College, Baotou 014060, China.
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Long
authors.affiliation: National Resource Center for Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 100700, China ; Baotou Medical College, Baotou 014060, China.
authors.forename: Zhanhu
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.affiliation: National Resource Center for Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 100700, China ; Baotou Medical College, Baotou 014060, China.
authors.forename: Yingli
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Baotou Medical College, Baotou 014060, China.
authors.forename: Chunhong
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Baotou Medical College, Baotou 014060, China.
authors.forename: Na
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: National Resource Center for Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 100700, China ; Baotou Medical College, Baotou 014060, China.
authors.forename: Minhui
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Chinese Pharmacy, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing 100102, China ; Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Science, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100193, China.
authors.forename: Peigen
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Xiao
keywords: BLASTN; Molecular identification; Non-Camellia tea; Phylogenetic tree; Traditional function