Polymerase chain reaction-based snake origin tracing in commercial venom crystals by targeting the mitochondrial D-loop.

Snake venom is a valuable raw material for numerous therapeutic formulations because of its life-saving pharmacological potential. However, due to their high price, fake "snake venoms" have captured a significant portion of the global market, and there is currently no reliable reported DNA-based method available for quickly distinguishing between fakes and originals. Therefore, in this study, a set of newly designed snake-specific universal primers targeting mitochondrial D-loop fragments were employed to detect snake origins in commercial venom crystals by only simplex polymerase chain reaction analysis.