Validation of Marketed Medicinal Plants of District Lahore, Based On Classical and Molecular Markers

Abstract

Concept of plant based medicines is gaining popularity day by day that is why their utilization has also been increased. But in medicinal plants utilization basic issue lies with their quality assurance. Some medicinal plants morphologically resemble with each other and during their field collection these plants are usually misidentified and replaced with the original plant species. This adulteration problem can affect the drug utilizer at local, national as well as at global level. Use of adulterer plant for curing specific ailment can result in horrible form. Hence current study was aimed to establish some authentication tools for identification of original medicinal plant species. These tools had provided basis for characterization and validation of marketed medicinal plants and recommended to minimize the issue of quality assurance of herbal drugs. For this study some selected medicinal plants (Cinnamomum verum, Cinnamomum tamala, Gymnema sylvestre, Sphaeranthus indicus, Artemesia maritima, Averrhoa carambola, Achillea millefolium and Morus nigra) were collected from local herbal markets of Lahore, along their original plant species collected from the fields. In this regard, standardization and authentication of selected drugs was achieved by combination of taxonomic parameters (morphology, anatomy, palynology and solubility analysis) and advance genomic markers (DNA barcoding). Results reported some significant morphological, anatomical and palynological markers for identification of studied medicinal plants. For example anatomical studies of Cinnamomum verum and Canella winterana showed stomatal variation i.e. anomocytic in C. verum and paracytic in C. winterana. Moreover Sphaeranthus indicus was clearly distinct from Sphaeranthus africanus on the basis of size of epidermal cells as 52.6 µm in S. indicus and 61.8 µm in S. africanus. Similarly palynological results revealed circular to spheroidal shape of pollen in Achillea millifolium while oblate shape was observed in Adhatoda vasaka. Furthermore colpi length of Artemisia maritima was 11.8 µm while 4.5 µm in Artemisia absinthium. The authenticity of herbal samples was also confirmed by DNA barcoding technique in which four primers i.e., matK, nrITS, rbcL and psbA-trnH were successfully used. It had been observed that most successful primer was rbcL followed by nrITS and matK primer whereas psbA-trnH produced least number of amplification. Overall results can be concluded as maximum adulteration was observed in all marketed samples of Cinnamomum verum, Cinnamomum tamala Artemisia maritima and Butea monosperma. However less adulteration was found in samples of Gymnema sylvestre followed by Sphaeranrhus indicus, Morus nigra and Achillea millefolium.