DNA Extraction from Dry Rhizomes for DNA Barcoding. Development of a Cost-Effective Method (PDF)

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject Biology - Genetics / Gene Technology, grade: A, , course: Bachelor of Science Honors in Export Agriculture Specialized in Agricultural Production Technology, language: English, abstract: This research was done to develop a low-cost method for DNA extraction from the dry rhizomes of Heen aratta. DNA extraction is very hard from dry rhizomes because contain of high polyphenolic content. Three modified method methods were followed to extract the DNA from dry rhizomes, SDS, 4x CTAB, and CTAB series methods.

Alpinia calcarata (heen aratta) is widely used as ayurvedic medicine in Sri Lanka. Medicinal uses are treatments for indigestion, impurities of blood, throat inflammation and voice improvement, cough, respiratory ailments, bronchitis, asthma, diabetic and fever. The medicinal valuable part of the Heen aratta plant is the rhizome.

The dry rhizomes are supplied to the Ayurveda medicine shops by local collectors and import from India like foreign countries. The collectors identify the Heen aratta plant by the external morphological characters. This method is not enough to identify the Heen aratta plant correctly, because there are many related species to Alpinia calcarata and their morphological characters are almost the same. The related species are Alpinia galanga (Maha aratta), Alpinia malaccensis (Ran kinihiriya) and etc.