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Establishment of a PCR Assay for the Detection and Discrimination of Authentic Cordyceps and Adulterant Species in Food and Herbal Medicines

Accurate detection and differentiation of adulterants in food ingredients and herbal medicines are crucial for the safety and basic quality control of these products. Ophiocordyceps sinensis is described as the only fungal source for the authentic medicinal ingredient used in the herbal medicine “Co...

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Autores principales: Moon, Byeong Cheol, Kim, Wook Jin, Park, Inkyu, Sung, Gi-Ho, Noh, Pureum
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6222412/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30072640
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules23081932
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author Moon, Byeong Cheol
Kim, Wook Jin
Park, Inkyu
Sung, Gi-Ho
Noh, Pureum
author_facet Moon, Byeong Cheol
Kim, Wook Jin
Park, Inkyu
Sung, Gi-Ho
Noh, Pureum
author_sort Moon, Byeong Cheol
collection PubMed
description Accurate detection and differentiation of adulterants in food ingredients and herbal medicines are crucial for the safety and basic quality control of these products. Ophiocordyceps sinensis is described as the only fungal source for the authentic medicinal ingredient used in the herbal medicine “Cordyceps”, and two other fungal species, Cordyceps militaris and Isaria tenuipes, are the authentic fungal sources for food ingredients in Korea. However, substitution of these three species, and adulteration of herbal material and dietary supplements originating from Cordyceps pruinosa or Isaria cicadae, seriously affects the safety and reduces the therapeutic efficacy of these products. Distinguishing between these species based on their morphological features is very difficult, especially in commercially processed products. In this study, we employed DNA barcode-based species-specific sequence characterized amplified region (SCAR) markers to discriminate authentic herbal Cordyceps medicines and Cordyceps-derived dietary supplements from related but inauthentic species. The reliable authentication tool exploited the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of a nuclear ribosomal RNA gene (nrDNA). We used comparative nrDNA-ITS sequence analysis of the five fungal species to design two sets of SCAR markers. Furthermore, we used a set of species-specific SCAR markers to establish a real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay for the detection of species, contamination, and degree of adulteration. We confirmed the discriminability and reproducibility of the SCAR marker analysis and the real-time PCR assay using commercially processed food ingredients and herbal medicines. The developed SCAR markers may be used to efficiently differentiate authentic material from their related adulterants on a species level. The ITS-based SCAR markers and the real-time PCR assay constitute a useful genetic tool for preventing the adulteration of Cordyceps and Cordyceps-related dietary supplements.
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spelling pubmed-62224122018-11-13 Establishment of a PCR Assay for the Detection and Discrimination of Authentic Cordyceps and Adulterant Species in Food and Herbal Medicines Moon, Byeong Cheol Kim, Wook Jin Park, Inkyu Sung, Gi-Ho Noh, Pureum Molecules Article Accurate detection and differentiation of adulterants in food ingredients and herbal medicines are crucial for the safety and basic quality control of these products. Ophiocordyceps sinensis is described as the only fungal source for the authentic medicinal ingredient used in the herbal medicine “Cordyceps”, and two other fungal species, Cordyceps militaris and Isaria tenuipes, are the authentic fungal sources for food ingredients in Korea. However, substitution of these three species, and adulteration of herbal material and dietary supplements originating from Cordyceps pruinosa or Isaria cicadae, seriously affects the safety and reduces the therapeutic efficacy of these products. Distinguishing between these species based on their morphological features is very difficult, especially in commercially processed products. In this study, we employed DNA barcode-based species-specific sequence characterized amplified region (SCAR) markers to discriminate authentic herbal Cordyceps medicines and Cordyceps-derived dietary supplements from related but inauthentic species. The reliable authentication tool exploited the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of a nuclear ribosomal RNA gene (nrDNA). We used comparative nrDNA-ITS sequence analysis of the five fungal species to design two sets of SCAR markers. Furthermore, we used a set of species-specific SCAR markers to establish a real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay for the detection of species, contamination, and degree of adulteration. We confirmed the discriminability and reproducibility of the SCAR marker analysis and the real-time PCR assay using commercially processed food ingredients and herbal medicines. The developed SCAR markers may be used to efficiently differentiate authentic material from their related adulterants on a species level. The ITS-based SCAR markers and the real-time PCR assay constitute a useful genetic tool for preventing the adulteration of Cordyceps and Cordyceps-related dietary supplements. MDPI 2018-08-02 /pmc/articles/PMC6222412/ /pubmed/30072640 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules23081932 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Moon, Byeong Cheol
Kim, Wook Jin
Park, Inkyu
Sung, Gi-Ho
Noh, Pureum
Establishment of a PCR Assay for the Detection and Discrimination of Authentic Cordyceps and Adulterant Species in Food and Herbal Medicines
title Establishment of a PCR Assay for the Detection and Discrimination of Authentic Cordyceps and Adulterant Species in Food and Herbal Medicines
title_full Establishment of a PCR Assay for the Detection and Discrimination of Authentic Cordyceps and Adulterant Species in Food and Herbal Medicines
title_fullStr Establishment of a PCR Assay for the Detection and Discrimination of Authentic Cordyceps and Adulterant Species in Food and Herbal Medicines
title_full_unstemmed Establishment of a PCR Assay for the Detection and Discrimination of Authentic Cordyceps and Adulterant Species in Food and Herbal Medicines
title_short Establishment of a PCR Assay for the Detection and Discrimination of Authentic Cordyceps and Adulterant Species in Food and Herbal Medicines
title_sort establishment of a pcr assay for the detection and discrimination of authentic cordyceps and adulterant species in food and herbal medicines
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6222412/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30072640
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules23081932
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