Abstract: Current Chinese herbal medicine market having been appeared a phenomenon that the sources are confused and true or false is difficult to distinguish.Thus,DNA molecular diagnosis rapidly becomes an important tool for the identification of Chinese herbal medicines.To carry out DNA detection,DNA extraction is one of crucial steps.However,current methods of DNA extraction are toxic,cumbersome,expensive and time consuming.Therefore,it is significant to develop a DNA extraction method that is low-toxic,simple,low-cost and time saving.We use 150 mmol/L NaCl as a lysis,in which adding activated carbon(AC),the DNA template increased to a large extent,including Crocus sativus,Glycyrrhiza,the flower of Panax notoginseng (Burk) F.H.Chen, especially the template of Crocus sativus increased by more than 30 times.And the DNA extraction process cost less than 10 minutes.It is a clear illustration that this simple method of extracting DNA from Chinese herbal medicine is potential.

Key words: Chinese herbal medicine, DNA extraction, activated carbon, lysis buffer