Background : Kalopanacis Cortex (海桐皮) is listed in「The Korea Pharmacopoeia (KP)」as
the original plant of Kalopanax septemlobus (Thunb.) Koidz. However, the dried cortex of
Erythrina eariegata L (刺桐) is an adulterant, one of the most indiscriminately used herbal
medicines because of its similar morphologic. Due to the morphological similarities of the
dried cortex of this plant to those of K. septemlobus which is used as a substitute herbal for
E. eariegata, distinguish these two species is extremely difficult. Meanwhile, K. septemlobus is
a polymorphic species, its morphological characteristics showed great diversity due to the
different geographical and environmental factors. For this reason, it is conducted to develop
molecular markers to distinguishing these K. septemlobus with E. eariegata by using
conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR).
Methods and Results : In this study, In order to clearly identify origin of K. septemlobus, E.
eariegata was analyzed from four barcode regions of chloroplast DNA (psbA-trnH, rbcL,
matK, atpH-atpF) and nuclear ribosomal DNA (ITS2) to evaluate the ability of discrimination
for each barcode region. The present study aimed to analyze the percent of variable sites
were provided the highest ITS2 (2.3%) followed by rbcL (8.2%), in oder to develop a
species-specific primer that can distinguish K. septemlobus form E. eariegata.
Conclusion : The INDEL markers were developed based on the divergence of each sequence,
and it is possible now to identify the two species of K. septemlobus with just a single
performance of PCR. This will not only prevent misused of the plant, but also to maintain
the quality of the herbal medicine as well as to verify and guarantee safety for public health.