DNA BARCODING OF THE EGYPTIAN MEDICINAL PLANT Astragalus spinosus

Medicinal plants have served as the basis of alternative medicine and have become the primary source for developing new medications. Astragalus spinosus (Forssk.) Muschl. belongs to family Fabaceae and due to its active constituent’s composition, it is used traditionally to treat various ailments. Additionally, various Astragalus-based dietary supplements were sold for supporting immunity and cardiovascular system. Therefore, authentication of the medicinal plant material is important and vital to provide an extensive database with DNA data for easy identification, adulteration detection and conservation of genetic resources. In the current study, three partial chloroplast coding genes were examined in A.spinosus; ribulose 1,5biphosphate carboxylase large subunit (rbcL), RNA polymerase (rpoC1) and maturase K (matK). When compared to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database, the results showed that rbcL was successful in identifying and discriminating A.spinosus at the genus and species levels. The, rpoC1 and matK genes revealed a high level of identity with Astragalus species, indicating that they are capable of identifying A.spinosus at the genus level. Phylogenetic trees were established based on the expected amino acids sequence of each coding gene, demonstrating the extent of relatedness with recorded plant species in the NCBI database.