Molecular identification of Indian medicinal plant tulsi (Ociumum tenuiflorum Linn.) by Internal Transcr ibed Spacer 2 region

Ocimum tenuiflorum Linn. Tulsi, is widely used in many Ayurvedic preparations, however, its molecular identif ication by fast and robust single amplicon marker is not properly understood. Most commonly studied molecular markers for plant identif ication from chloroplast, mitochondria and nuclear source, are not very easy for the rapid and eff icient identif ication of medicinal plants at the molecular level. ITS2 is one of the best candidate genes for rapid identi f ication of these plants. Attempts were made to amplify ITS2 region from the isolated genomic DNA of O. tenuiflorum Linn. Tulsi and the f inal ITS2 data were used to differentiate O. tenuiflorum Linn. Tulsi among taxonomically related members of family Lamiaceae. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that the studied plant, Ocimum tenuiflorum isolate SL1 is positioned between two genera of the same Ocimeae tribe and is very closely placed with other species of the same genus Ocimum. Homology modeling of ITS2 secondary structure indicates high prediction performance in which, three out of four helices were transferred more than 75%, which is required for any plant identif ication based on single gene analysis. This f irst report of O. tenuiflorum SL1 isolate ITS2 region, (NCBI nucleotide Accession Number KT235956; GI: 955300689) may prove signif icant for the molecular identif ication of other Ocimum species from India.