Background: Memecylon species are commonly used in Indian ethnomedical
practices. The accurate identification is vital to enhance the drug's
efficacy and biosafety. In the present study, PCR based techniques like
RAPD, ISSR and DNA barcoding regions, such as 5s, psbA-trnH, rpoC1, ndh
and atpF-atpH, were used to authenticate and analyze the diversity of
five Memecylon species collected from Western Ghats of India. Results:
Phylogenetic analysis clearly distinguished Memecylon malabaricum
from Memecylon wightii and Memecylon umbellatum from Memecylon
edule and clades formed are in accordance with morphological keys. In
the RAPD and ISSR analyses, 27 accessions representing five Memecylon
species were distinctly separated into three different clades. M.
malabaricum and M. wightii grouped together and M. umbellatum, M. edule
and Memecylon talbotianum grouped in the same clade with high Jaccard
dissimilarity coefficient and bootstrap support between each node,
indicating that these grouped species are phylogenetically similar.
Conclusion: Data from the present study reveals that chloroplast
psbA-trnH region could be used as a potential candidate region for
identifying Memecylon species, and ISSR marker system could be used for
estimating genetic diversity since it has high percent polymorphism
compared to RAPD marker