Chemistry and Molecular Characteristics of Premna flavescens Wall. ex C. B. Clarke in Vietnam

Premna flavescens Wall. ex C. B. Clarke, a medicinal plant in the family Lamiaceae, was used for the treatment of arthritis in folk medicine. From the essential oil extracted from the leaves of this plant we have identified 51 components, with β-caryophyllene as the major component (26.3%). The essential oil showed a strong anti-inflammatory effect in vitro with an IC 50 of 5.88 µg/mL. DNA barcoding is an useful tool for species identification based on the standardized genomic DNA fragments, but the molecular database of P flavescens is still lacking from Genebank. A molecular species identification tool for P flavescens was developed for the first time using DNA barcoding. The sequences of rbcL, trnH–psbA, internal transcribed spacer, and 18S barcodes of P flavescens were submitted to the Genebank with the accession numbers MW553265, MW553266, MT935698.1, and MW485128.1, respectively. This will be highly useful for the molecular authentication of the marker samples.