Application of amplicon DNA metabarcoding (AMB) to the authentication of herbal products has revealed widespread substitution and raised questions concerning safety, efficacy and fraud*. A PCR-free alternative to this approach would be mining of shotgun sequencing data for barcoding markers, but this method should be evaluated in comparison with AMB using artificial mixtures and spiked tracers. This project involves some lab work for library preparation as well as involve bioinformatics and species delimitation. The outcome should be a manuscript on the use of this approach.
Research question:
Does amplicon DNA metabarcoding yield reliable assessments of species diversity in complex herbal products? Does shotgun data mining yield comparable or better accuracy in species diversity assessment from complex herbal products?
Supervision:
- Hugo de Boer, PET group NHM;
- Vincent Manzanilla, PET group NHM;
- Jarl Andreas Anmarkrud, DNA Lab NHM.
Further reading:
* Raclariu, Ancuta Cristina; Paltinean, Ramona; Vlase, Laurian; Labarre, Aurélie; Manzanilla, Vincent; Ichim, Mihael Cristin; Crisan, Gianina; Brysting, Anne Krag; de Boer, Hugo; 2017. Comparative authentication of Hypericum perforatum herbal products using DNA metabarcoding, TLC and HPLC-MS. Scientific Reports 7(1) 1291
Raclariu, Ancuta C; Mocan, Andrei; Popa, Madalina O; Vlase, Laurian; Ichim, Mihael C; Crisan, Gianina; Brysting, Anne K; de Boer, Hugo. 2017. Veronica officinalis product authentication using DNA metabarcoding and HPLC-MS reveals widespread adulteration with Veronica chamaedrys. Frontiers in pharmacology 8: 378
Raclariu, Ancuta Cristina; Tebrencu, Carmen Elena; Ichim, Mihael Cristi; Ciuperca, Oana Teodora; Brysting, Anne Krag; de Boer, Hugo. 2017. What's in the box? Authentication of Echinacea herbal products using DNA metabarcoding and HPTLC. bioRxiv 202721.