AIM: To study the correlation between ITS sequence variation of
Cnidium monnieri and geographical
distribution and chemo
type of the plant. METHODS: Two pairs of primers Pf+Pb and P5 8S ITS1+P5 8S ITS2 were designed. The PCR products were purified and sequenced by silver staining DNA sequencing technique and ABI 310. RESULTS: Complete sequcnce of ITS and 5 8S rDNA, and partial sequence of 18S rDNA and 26S rDNA of
Cnidium monnieri were obtained. They totaled about 700 bp. The sequences of ITS 1 and ITS 2 ranged from 210 bp to 217 bp and 219 bp to 224 bp; respectively. Pairwese sequence divergences of the samples ranged from 0% to 1 93% in ITS 1, and from 0 46% to 2 34% in ITS 2. The ITS 1 is more conservative. Phylogenetic tree based on ITS 2 sequence data (225 aligned sites) indicated that the Harbin samples, Hengshui and Dezhou samples, and Zhengzhou and Gaochun samples clustered separately. CONCLUSION: The sequence variation of ITS 2 is correlated to latitude
distribution of Cnidium monnieri in China. Further studies are needed to clarify the relation between ITS sequence variation and chemo type of Cnidium monnieri .