A NEW CHLOROPLAST BASED PRIMER SET TO DISCRIMINATE THREE CLOSELY RELATED SPECIES OF GENUS MENTHA THROUGH DNA BARCODING COUPLED HIGH RESOLUTION MELTING ANALYSIS AND METHOD THEREOF.
Present invention discloses a method for identification and discrimination of three commercially important and closely related plant species belonging to genus Mentha, said method comprising extracting chloroplast DNA from said plants species and PCR amplification of said DNA from universal DNA barcode primers. The amplified products were sequenced and analysing said sequence to detect conserved and variable sites in studied plant species. Regions of the chloroplast DNA which contain suitable characteristic sequences have been identified and used to designed novel primer set suitable for Bar-HRM. The method may be adapted so that the identification of said plants species within a particular sample is determined. The method can be used to identify adulterant plant species in food products, oil and medicinal product and is particularly suitable for identifying Mentha DNA. As comparison to DNA barcoding method this is a cost effective method for identification and discrimination of particularly Mentha plants species. Particular oligonucleotides used in this invention are effective to discriminate closely related Mentha plants species without sequencing.
