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Assessing product adulteration in natural health products for laxative yielding plants, Cassia, Senna, and Chamaecrista, in Southern India using DNA barcoding

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Abstract

Medicinal plants such as Cassia, Senna, and Chamaecrista (belonging to the family Fabaceae) are well known for their laxative properties. They are extensively used within indigenous health care systems in India and several other countries. India exports over 5000 metric tonnes per year of these specific herbal products, and the demand for natural health product market is growing at approximately 10–15 % annually. The raw plant material used as active ingredients is almost exclusively sourced from wild populations. Consequently, it is widely suspected that the commercial herbal products claiming to contain these species may be adulterated or contaminated. In this study, we have attempted to assess product authentication and the extent of adulteration in the herbal trade of these species using DNA barcoding. Our method includes four common DNA barcode regions: ITS, matK, rbcL, and psbA-trnH. Analysis of market samples revealed considerable adulteration of herbal products: 50 % in the case of Senna auriculata, 37 % in Senna tora, and 8 % in Senna alexandrina. All herbal products containing Cassia fistula were authentic, while the species under the genus Chamaecrista were not in trade. Our results confirm the suspicion that there is rampant herbal product adulteration in Indian markets. DNA barcodes such as that demonstrated in this study could be effectively used as a regulatory tool to control the adulteration of herbal products and contribute to restoring quality assurance and consumer confidence in natural health products.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Department of Biotechnology, Government of India (Grant number: No.BT/IN/ ISTP-EOI/2011). We acknowledge the help received in taxonomic identification and collection of samples from Dr. Usha V, Jain University and Dr. R. Ganesan (ATREE).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Royal Enclave, Srirampura, Jakkur Post, Bangalore, 560064, India

    Gopalakrishnan Saroja Seethapathy, Umapathy Senthilkumar, Ramanan Uma Shaanker & Gudasalamani Ravikanth

  2. Department of Plant Biotechnology, School of Biotechnology, Madurai Kamaraj University, Palkalai Nagar, 625021, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India

    Gopalakrishnan Saroja Seethapathy & Doss Ganesh

  3. School of Ecology and Conservation, University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore, 560065, India

    Jayanthinagar Urumarudappa Santhosh Kumar & Ramanan Uma Shaanker

  4. Department of Crop Physiology, University of Agricultural Sciences, Gandhi Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Bangalore, 560065, India

    Jayanthinagar Urumarudappa Santhosh Kumar & Ramanan Uma Shaanker

  5. Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (CBG), College of Biological Sciences, Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1, Canada

    Steven G Newmaster & Subramanyam Ragupathy

Authors
  1. Gopalakrishnan Saroja Seethapathy
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  2. Doss Ganesh
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  4. Umapathy Senthilkumar
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  5. Steven G Newmaster
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  6. Subramanyam Ragupathy
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  7. Ramanan Uma Shaanker
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  8. Gudasalamani Ravikanth
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gudasalamani Ravikanth.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary Table 1

List of species used in the study along with their voucher number, collection sites and Genbank Accession numbers (DOCX 18 kb)

Supplementary Table 2

Details of herbal NHP samples collected from different parts of south India used in the analysis (DOCX 15 kb)

Supplementary Table 3

Details of the barcode primers used in the study (DOCX 14 kb)

Supplementary Table 4

Reported anthraquinone derivatives of herbal plants studied (DOCX 15.9 kb)

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Seethapathy, G.S., Ganesh, D., Santhosh Kumar, J.U. et al. Assessing product adulteration in natural health products for laxative yielding plants, Cassia, Senna, and Chamaecrista, in Southern India using DNA barcoding. Int J Legal Med 129, 693–700 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-014-1120-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-014-1120-z

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