Identification of Alocasia odora (Kuwazuimo in Japanese) Using PCR Method

Kuwazuimo (Alocasia odora) and shimakuwazuimo (Alocasia cucullata) are evergreen perennial plants that originated in East Asia. Although inedible, they are occasionally eaten by mistake because they resemble satoimo (Colocasia esculenta), and this has caused food poisoning in Japan. It is not easy to determine the cause of a food poisoning outbreak from the shape or chemical composition when the available sample is small. Therefore, we developed a new primer pair for PCR to identify kuwazuimo and shimakuwazuimo in small samples, based on the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of ribosomal DNA. Using PCR with the developed primer pair, we detected all samples of kuwazuimo obtained from the market, while excluding 17 other kinds of crops. The samples were identified as shimakuwazuimo by DNA sequencing of the PCR products. The present PCR method showed high specificity and was confirmed to be applicable to the identification of kuwazuimo and shimakuwazuimo from various crops.