Identification and quantification of the traditional Chinese medicinal plant Gentiana macrophylla using Taqman real-time PCR.

Gentiana macrophylla Pall. is a commonly used antirheumatic herb. There are four species of Gentiana recorded as herbal drugs in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia. The other species are often marketed as G. macrophylla, and thus the therapeutic effects of G. macrophylla are not achieved. A novel one-step methodology based on real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology has been developed for the identification of G. macrophylla. This relative quantification methodology does not require a known amount of standard, allowing the analysis of many more samples together. The utilization of real-time PCR does not require sample handling, preventing contamination and resulting in much faster and higher throughput results.