DNA barcoding of Bacopa species coupled with high-resolution melting analysis

In Thailand, there are three species of Bacopa, namely, B. monnieri, B. caroliniana and B. floribunda. Among these Bacopa species, B. monnieri is the only medicinal species used for the treatment of cognitive impairment and improvement of cognitive abilities because of its bioactive constituents, bacoside A and B. However, due to the similar characteristics of plants, it is difficult to differentiate among related species, resulting in confusion during identification. For this reason, to ensure therapeutic quality for consumers, authentication is important. In this study, the three abovementioned Bacopa species were evaluated using barcoding coupled with high-resolution melting (Bar-HRM) analysis based on primers designed for the trnL-F sequences of the three species. The melting profiles of the trnL-F amplicons of B. caroliniana and B. floribunda were clearly different from the melting profile of the trnL-F amplicon from B. monnieri; thus, the species could be discriminated by Bar-HRM analysis. Bar-HRM was then used to authenticate commercial products in various forms. The melting curves of the six commercial samples indicated that all the tested products contained genuine B. monnieri species. This method provides an efficient and reliable authentication system for future commercial herbal products and offers a reference system for quality control.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author