A rapid diagnostic approach to identify poisonous plants using DNA barcoding data

Among plants, several groups have toxicities that are dangerous for humans. Plant exposures are indeed one of the most frequent cases reported to poison control centers. A rapid and easy screening test is required for accurate medical treatment. However, it is usually based on the morphological analysis of ingested plant portions that is expensive in terms of time and resources requiring experience in systematic botany which could also be biased by the absence of clear diagnostic traits in stomach contents. In this study we designed specific primer pairs for the amplification of a Sequence-Characterized Amplified Region (SCAR) within standard barcode regions (i.e. <i>rbcL</i> and <i>trnH-psbA</i>) to detect toxic plants belonging to the genera <i>Atropa</i> and <i>Colchicum</i>. Allied edible species were also included in our dataset to exclude the cross-amplification with the toxic ones when the detection system is applied. Using real-time PCR we tested the specificity of the selected primer pairs in order to develop a fast and reliable tool to be used in poison centers.