Molecular Barcoding of Melissa Officinalis L. (Badranjboye) in Iran and Identification of Adulteration in Its Medicinal Services

Medication plants are an important source of disease treatment in many countries. Today, quality control of the products of medicinal plants is a major task. Customer health may be at risk due to fraud and misconduct in the sales associates ' sales centres. Melissa officinalis (Badranjboye) is an important medicinal plant in Iran used for several diseases. In Iran, the species of Dracocephalum , Hymencrater , Nepeta and Stachys are mistakenly sold under the name of badranjboye in the selling centers of medicinal plants that have different pharmaceuticals properties. To avoid this mistake, we will follow the following goals in this research: 1 - Check the cheating and identification of badranjboye in the Iran market of medicinal plants and 2 - Provision of molecular barcode for the medicinal species of Melissa officinalis . We compared the plant samples sold (leaf) and reference species with morphological properties, odor, and molecular sequences and performed various molecular analyzes, such as sequencing, genetic distance determination, and phylogenetic tree construction. The reports indicated that internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and psbA–trnH intergenic spacer (psbA–trnH) sequences are an efficient molecular marker to produce barcode gap and differentiating Melissa officinalis from other species.