DNA Barcoding Technique – A Molecular Biology Tool for Plant Identification - A Review

Abstract

Plant organisms represent the lungs of the Earth. Plants are considered a real and important source of energy for the existence of species and the geochemical and climatic evolution of our planet. Plant species are essential for human survival, are the main source of food, provide raw materials for many industries and have various medical applications. Knowledge, understanding and protection of plant biodiversity are essential for human life on Earth, especially in the current context of global warming. Thus, the discovery of new plant species and their assessment increases our knowledge about the world we live in and helps us realize their im-portance and role. The DNA barcode technique is a widely used tool for identifying new species, evaluating them and for taxonomic classification. Interest in this technique has grown increasingly; therefore there is now an online database, where about 10 million DNA barcodes are available. Identifying a universal DNA barcode in plants is a real challenge, even if we are talking about using a single locus barcode or multilocus barcode. At the present, regions of the plastid (matK, rbcL, trnH-psbA) and nuclear (ITS) genome are used for this purpose. Thus, this activity of identifying a universal DNA barcode for the plant kingdom is ongoing