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Molecular Approaches for Authentication and Identification of Medicinal Plants

March 2025
Plant Molecular Biology Reporter

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The herbal plants had been utilized for the cure of various general as well as chronic ailments throughout the world from prehistoric times. However, impurities and the use of low quality herbs as adulterants have caused a major problem for consumers and plant entrepreneurs in consideration of bioactivity and quality. The quality and effectiveness of herbal formulations are dependent upon accurate identification and true to type of medicinal plants. Therefore, identification as well as validation of pharmaceutical plants is a high necessity. Molecular markers utilize short oligonucleotides for the identification of plant species. There are different advantages offered by the use of oligonucleotides such as freedom from age dependency, tissue specificity, nutrient availability, and displaying a greater distinguishing power. The array of methods used to check the authentication of medicinal plants exploits morphological, anatomical, biochemical, and DNA-based uniqueness to ascertain the genuineness and truthfulness of the source medicinal plant from the adulterants, substitutes, and spurious drugs. Therefore, identification of plants utilizing nucleotide information is a suitable method for characterization of medicinal plants and similar populations or varieties belonging to the same species. Comparison made with authentic specimens from the herbarium is of utmost requirement for accurate identification through final morphological comparison and analysis. Present review enlists various aspects for validation of medicinal plants and molecular methods that are PCR-based or hybridization-based with special emphasis on DNA barcoding, array-based methods, and high throughput sequencing technologies for authentication of medicinal plants.

Different classes of molecular markers

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Pictorial description of RFLP

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Schematic representation of RAPD

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Schematic representation of AFLP process. Frequent cutter restriction enzyme MseI and Rare cutter EcoRI are shown here. A Adaptor sequence are complementary to sticky ends of template DNA and hence adaptor binds to sticky ends of template DNA. B Primers are designed using the sequence of adaptor. In pre-amplification primer, it is supplemented with additional base. C In selective amplification step primer, it is supplemented with additional two bases. These amplified fragments are then subjected to gel electrophoresis

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Represent mismatch amplification can occur by four selective nucleotides. Here, D can be G, C, and A

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Plant Molecular Biology Reporter

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-025-01557-7

REVIEW

Molecular Approaches forAuthentication andIdentiﬁcation

ofMedicinal Plants

JitenderKumar1 · KajalChoudhary1· Shelja1· Anukriti1· HarsharanSingh1· AshwaniKumar2· PankajBagga3

Received: 18 September 2024 / Accepted: 26 February 2025

Abstract

The herbal plants had been utilized for the cure of various general as well as chronic ailments throughout the world from pre-

historic times. However, impurities and the use of low quality herbs as adulterants have caused a major problem for consumers

and plant entrepreneurs in consideration of bioactivity and quality. The quality and eﬀectiveness of herbal formulations are

dependent upon accurate identiﬁcation and true to type of medicinal plants. Therefore, identiﬁcation as well as validation

of pharmaceutical plants is a high necessity. Molecular markers utilize short oligonucleotides for the identiﬁcation of plant

species. There are diﬀerent advantages oﬀered by the use of oligonucleotides such as freedom from age dependency, tis-

sue speciﬁcity, nutrient availability, and displaying a greater distinguishing power. The array of methods used to check the

authentication of medicinal plants exploits morphological, anatomical, biochemical, and DNA-based uniqueness to ascertain

the genuineness and truthfulness of the source medicinal plant from the adulterants, substitutes, and spurious drugs. There-

fore, identiﬁcation of plants utilizing nucleotide information is a suitable method for characterization of medicinal plants

and similar populations or varieties belonging to the same species. Comparison made with authentic specimens from the

herbarium is of utmost requirement for accurate identiﬁcation through ﬁnal morphological comparison and analysis. Present

review enlists various aspects for validation of medicinal plants and molecular methods that are PCR-based or hybridization-

based with special emphasis on DNA barcoding, array-based methods, and high throughput sequencing technologies for

authentication of medicinal plants.

Keywords Medicinal plants· Molecular approaches· Authentication· Identiﬁcation

Introduction

Human beings are dependent on plant to fulﬁll their basic

needs like food and shelter. Herbal plant extracts or raw

material in powdered form, taken from diﬀerent parts of

plant having bioactive compounds are used for medicinal

purpose, dietary supplements, or in cosmetic products. Com-

pound annual growth rate (CAGR) of global herbal medicine

market is expected to increase by 20.5% by 2020–2026. This

sharp increase in global demand of herbal medicine is due

to their use in chronic diseases like cancer and microbial

diseases. Moreover, immunosuppressive and cardiovascular

drugs are mostly derived from herbal plants. According to an

estimate, 2000 tons/annum of herbal raw material is used in

the manufacture of drugs and cosmetics in India, with more

than 1500 plants are added as constituents of food supple-

ments and 1178 plants are traded as medicinal plants, out of

which 178 herbal plants accounting for 100 metric tons of

annual consumption (Semwal etal. 2019). Domestic trade

of medicinal plants accounts for 80 billion Indian National

Rupees annually and net export of herbs and herbal products

account 786.3 million US dollars annually. The net export of

these herbal plants and herbal products has been increasing

every year, where 14.22% increase in net export of herbal

plants and 12.23% increase in herbal products were recorded

in year 2017–2018 as compared to previous years. There is

a huge deﬁcit of demand and supply of these herbal plant

products as domestic cultivation of herbal plants accounts

* Jitender Kumar

jitenderkumarcuhp@gmail.com

1 Department ofPlant Sciences, School ofLife Sciences,

Central University ofHimachal Pradesh, Kangra176206,

India

2 Patanjali Herbal Research Department, Patanjali Research

Institute, Haridwar249405, India

3 School ofBioengineering andBiosciences, Lovely

Professional University, Punjab144411, India

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