DNA Barcoding of Five Medicinal Plants from Siwa Oasis, Egypt

Main Article Content

Abeer Mohamed*

Abstract

Siwa Oasis is one of the depressions located in the northern part of the western desert of Egypt covering
almost 1000 Km2. The oasis land provides habitat for a diverse flora which became endangered after human
activity. Collection and surveying of the plant species that exist in the Oasis and the surrounding areas by
morphological and molecular means are important approaches. This study utilized DNA barcoding as a
rapid, reproducible and economic molecular tool for the discrimination and identification of five medicinal
plants in Siwa Oasis. I used rbcL+matK as a core barcode sites. Species identified during the course of this
study are Nitraria retusa, Cynara sibthorpiana, Capparis spinosa, Peganum harmala, Pergularia
tomentosa. This study is a first step toward the barcoding of all flora in Siwa Oasis and should help to
increase the awareness of plant biodiversity, not only in Siwa Oasis, but also in many other localities of
biodiversity in Egypt.


Keywords: DNA barcoding, rbcL, matK, medicinal plants, Siwa Oasis.
*Corresponding author: Tel.: 035429325
E-mail: [email protected]

Article Details

Section
Original Research Articles

References

[10] Newmaster, S.G., Fazekas, A.J. and Ragupathy, S., 2006. DNA barcoding in land plants:
evaluation of rbcL in a multigene tiered approach. Canadian Journal of Botany, 84, 335–441.
[11] Rubinoff, D., Cameron, S. and Will, K., 2006. Are plant DNA barcodes a search for the Holy
Grail? Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 21(1), 1–2.
[12] CBOL Plant Working Group, 2009. A DNA barcode for land plants. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(31), 12794–12797.
[13] Hollingsworth, P.M., Graham, S.W. and Little, D.P., 2011 Choosing and using a plant DNA
barcode. PLoS ONE, 6:e19254.
[14] Hilu, K.W. and Liang, H., 1997. The matK gene: sequence variation and application in plant
systematics. American Journal of Botany, 84, 830–839.
[15] Newmaster, S.G. and Ragupathy, S., 2009. Testing plant barcoding in a sister species
complex of pantropical Acacia (Mimosoideae, Fabaceae). Molecular Ecology Resources,
9(Suppl.1), 172–180.
[16] Dunning, L.T. and Savolainen, V., 2010. Broad-scale amplification of matK for DNA
barcoding plants, a technical note. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 164, 1–9.
[17] Yu, J., Xue, J.H. and Zhou, S.L., 2011. New universal matK primers for DNA barcoding
angiosperms. Journal of Systematics and Evolution, 49, 176–181.
[18] Elansary, H.O., 2013. Towards a DNA barcode library for Egyptian flora, with a preliminary
focus on ornamental trees and shrubs of two major gardens. DNA Barcodes, (1), 46–55, DOI,
10.2478/dna–2013–0004.
[19] Atroush, H.EL., Magdy, H.El- M. and Werner, O., 2015. DNA Barcoding of two endangered
medicinal Plants from Abou Galoom protectorate. Life Science Journal, 12(9), 101-109.
[20] Ratnasingham, S. and Hebert, P.D.N., 2007. BOLD: The Barcode of life Data System
(www.barcodinglife.org). Molecular Ecology Notes, 7, 355–364.
[21] Benson, D.A., Boguski, M.S., Lipman, D.J. and Ostell, J., 1997. GenBank.
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/) Nucleic Acids Res., 25(1), 1–6.
[22] Boulos, L., 2009. Flora of Egypt Checklist, revised annotated edition, Al Hadara publishing.
Egypt.
[23] Levin, R.A., Wagner, W.L., Hoch, P.C., Nepokroeff, M., Pires, J.C., Zimmer, E.A. and
Sytsma, K.J., 2003. Family-Level Relationships of Onagraceae Based on Chloroplast rbcL
and ndhF Data. American Journal of Botany, 90(1), 107–115.
[24] Kress, W.J. and Erickson, D.L., 2007. A two-locus global DNA barcode for land plants: the
coding rbcL gene complements the non-coding trnH-psbA spacer region.PLoS One.2, e508.
[25] Tamura, K., Stecher, G., Peterson, D., Filipski, A. and Kumar, S., 2013. MEGA6: Molecular
Evolutionary Genetics Analysis version 6.0. Molecular Biology and Evolution., 30, 2725–
2729.
[26] Hebert, P.D.N., Penton, E.H., Burns, J.M., Janzen, D.H. and Hallwachs, W., 2004. Ten
species in one: DNA barcoding reveals cryptic species in the neotropical skipper butterfly
Astraptes fulgerator. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States
of America, 101(41), 14812–14817.
[27] Packer, L., Gibbs, J., Sheffield, C. and Hanner, R., 2009. DNA barcoding and the mediocrity
of morphology. Molecular Ecology Resources, 9, 42–50.
[28] Pires, A.C. and Marinoni, L., 2010. DNA barcoding and traditional taxonomy unified
through Integrative Taxonomy: a view that challenges the debate questioning both
methodologies. Biota Neotropica, 10, 339–346.
[29] Zahran, M.A. and Willis, A.J., 2008. The Vegetation of Egypt. Springer. London.
[30] Mariem, C., Sameh, M., Nadhem, S., Soumaya, Z., Najiba, Z. and Raoudha, E.G., 2014.
Antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of the extracts from Nitraria retusa fruits and their
applications to meat product preservation. Industrial Crops and Products, 55, 295–303.
KMITL Sci. Tech. J. Vol. 16 No. 2 Jul.-Dec. 2016
96
[31] Kalai, F.Z., Han, J., Ksouri, R., El Omri, A., Abdelly, C., and Isoda, H., 2013. Antiobesity
Effects of an Edible Halophyte Nitraria retusa Forssk in 3T3-L1 Preadipocyte
Differentiation and in C57B6J/L Mice Fed a High Fat Diet-Induced Obesity. Evidence-Based
Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Vol (2013), Article ID368658, 11 pages. vol.
doi:10.1155/2013/368658.
[32] Natural medicine comprehensive database. 1995-2016. Therapeutic Research Faculty,
publishers of Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database, Prescriber's Letter, and
Pharmacist's Letter. [online] Available at: http://naturaldatabase.therapeuticresearch.com
[33] Chevallier, A., 1996. The Encyclopedia of Medicinal Plants: A Practical Reference Guide to
over 550 Key Herbs and Their Medicinal Uses. Dorling Kindersley, New York.
[34] Tropical Plant Database, 1996-present. RAINTREE. [online] Available at: http://www.raintree.
com/artichoke.htm
[35] Chopra, R.N., Nayar, S.L. and Chopra, I.C., 2002. Glossary of Indian Medicinal Plants
(Including the Supplement). New Delhi: National Institute of Science Communication and
Information Resources.
[36] Arshad, N., Zitterl-Eglseer, K., Hasnain, S. and Hess, M., 2008. Effect of Peganum harmala
or its beta-carboline alkaloids on certain antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria and protozoa
from poultry. Phytotherapy Research, 22(11), 1533–1538.
[37] Lamchouri, F., Settaf, A., Cherrah,Y., Zemzami, M., Lyoussi, B., Zaid, A., Atif, N. and Hassar,
M., 1999. Antitumour principles from Peganum harmala seeds. Therapie, 54(6), 753–758.
[38] Asgarpanah, J., 2012. Chemistry, pharmacology and medicinal properties of Peganum
harmala L. African Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, 6(22), 1573-1580.
[39] Ghazanfer, S., 1994. Handbook of Arabian Medicinal Plants. CRC press Inc, pp. 35.
[40] AL Jabri, S., 2013 Chemical and Bio-analytical Studies on Pergularia tomentosa and Species
from the Mentha Genus. Ph.D. University of Leicester.
[41] Piacente, S., Masullo, M., De Nève, N., Dewelle, J., Hamed, A., Kiss, R. and Mijatovic, T.,
2009. Cardenolides from Pergularia tomentosa display cytotoxic activity resulting from their
potent inhibition of Na+/K+-ATPase Journal of Natural Products, 72, 1087–1091.
[42] Martin, S., Kavitha, P.D., Rathi, M.A., Kumar, D.J. and Gopalakrishnan, V.K., 2012.
Cytotoxic activity of Pergularia daemia against ovarian cancer cell lines OAW-42 and PA-1.
Journal of Natural Pharmaceuticals, 4(2), 203–209.