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Plant exposures are among the most frequently reported cases to poison control centres worldwide. This is a growing condition due to recent societal trends oriented towards the consumption of wild plants as food, cosmetics, or medicine. At least three general causes of plant poisoning can be identified: plant misidentification, introduction of new plant-based supplements and medicines with no controls about their safety, and the lack of regulation for the trading of herbal and phytochemical products. Moreover, an efficient screening for the occurrence of plants poisonous to humans is also desirable at the different stages of the food supply chain: from the raw material to the final transformed product. A rapid diagnosis of intoxication cases is necessary in order to provide the most reliable treatment. However, a precise taxonomic characterization of the ingested species is often challenging. In this review, we provide an overview of the emerging DNA-based tools and technologies to address the issue of poisonous plant identification. Specifically, classic DNA barcoding and its applications using High Resolution Melting (Bar-HRM) ensure high universality and rapid response respectively, whereas High Throughput Sequencing techniques (HTS) provide a complete characterization of plant residues in complex matrices. The pros and cons of each approach have been evaluated with the final aim of proposing a general user's guide to molecular identification directed to different stakeholder categories interested in the diagnostics of poisonous plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DNA barcoding is a recent and widely used molecular-based identification system that aims to identify biological specimens, and to assign them to a given species. However, DNA barcoding is even more than this, and besides many practical uses, it can be considered the core of an integrated taxonomic system, where bioinformatics plays a key role. DNA barcoding data could be interpreted in different ways depending on the examined taxa but the technique relies on standardized approaches, methods and analyses. The existing reference towards a common way to treat DNA barcoding data, analyses and results is the Barcode of Life Data Systems. However, the scientific community has produced in the recent years a number of alternative methods to manage barcoding data. The present work starts from this point, because users should be aware of the consequences their choices produce on the results. Despite the fact that a strict standardization is the essence of DNA barcoding, we propose a tour of six questions to improve the users' awareness about the method, the correct use of concepts and alternative tools provided by scientific community. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]