Background: Memecylon species are commonly used in Indian ethnomedical practices. The accurate identification is vital to enhance the drug's efficacy and biosafety. In the present study, PCR based techniques like RAPD, ISSR and DNA barcoding regions, such as 5s,
psbA
-trnH
, rpoC1
, ndh and
atpF
-atpH, were used to authenticate and analyze the diversity of five
Memecylon species collected from Western Ghats of India.
Results: Phylogenetic analysis clearly distinguished
Memecylon malabaricum
from
Memecylon wightii
and
Memecylon umbellatum
from
Memecylon edule
and clades formed are in accordance with morphological keys. In the RAPD and ISSR analyses, 27 accessions representing five
Memecylon species were distinctly separated into three different clades.
M. malabaricum and
M. wightii grouped together and
M. umbellatum,
M. edule and
Memecylon talbotianum
grouped in the same clade with high Jaccard dissimilarity coefficient and bootstrap support between each node, indicating that these grouped species are phylogenetically similar.
Conclusion: Data from the present study reveals that chloroplast
psbA-
trnH region could be used as a potential candidate region for identifying
Memecylon species, and ISSR marker system could be used for estimating genetic diversity since it has high percent polymorphism compared to RAPD marker.