Molecular markers in characterization of medicinal plants: An overview

Abstract

The demand for herbal medicines is increasing day-to-day because of their widebiological activity, higher safety margin than synthetic drugs. Hence, it is important tocharacterize the medicinal herbs. For the characterization of medicinal plants it is necessaryto develop the sensitive and effective technology. Molecular markers can be employed forcharacterization, since the progress made in genetic markers has been exciting. DNA-basedmolecular markers have acted as very useful tools in various fields like taxonomy,physiology, embryology, plant breeding, ecology, genetic engineering etc. DNA basedmarkers have their applications in fingerprinting genotypes, determining the seed purityand in phylogenetic analysis by which the conservation of the plant can be made easy. Theinnovation of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) made the development of DNA basedmarkers easier. Extensive research on molecular markers is in progress in many researchinstitutes all over the world. DNA-based molecular markers have a great utility in the druganalysis and widely used for the characterization of medicinally important plant species.This review is an attempt to evaluate critically the role of different DNA based markers inthe characterization of medicinal plants.