Food supplement Purtier placenta, produced by the company Riway, is distributed by a multilevel marketing scheme outside traditional therapeutic channels and is accompanied by aggressive marketing. Although its exact formulation changes swiftly in response to actions by regulatory authorities (for example, the Health Sciences Authority in Singapore), it is generally advertised as beneficial for patients with diabetes, cancer and other diseases because of its purported content of live stem cells from deer placenta. None of these claims is supported by clinical trials or peer-reviewed research. Nevertheless, it has spread among Czech oncology patients as “a miracle cure”. 

In this project, we focused on species identification of DNA extracted from Purtier Placenta 6th Edition (Riway, Singapore) using the QIAamp DNA Investigator kit, to verify the claim that the capsule´s main component is derived from deer.

Using a set of universal PCR primers and Sanger sequencing, we found that the DNA extracted from the capsule is most likely a mixture of several Cervidae species, predominantly Rusa unicolor or Rusa timorensis (both labelled Vulnerable by IUCN), with a contribution from Rangifer tarandus and Dama dama. Next, we used a set of species-specific PCR primers together with positive controls from seven Cervidae species (Dama dama, Dama mesopotamica, Cervus elaphus, Cervus nippon, Rangifer tarandus, Ruda timorensis and Rusa alfredi) to validate the mixture composition. Here, we present our identification data.

Acknowledgements

We thank Dr Matěj Vrubel, Ostrava Zoological Garden and Botanical Park, Mgr. Barbora Dobiášová and Dr Roman Vodička, Prague Zoo and Dr Jan Pluháček, Zoo Olomouc, for cooperation and providing positive control samples.

This work was funded by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic (LM2023053 EATRIS-CZ and LX22NPO5102 Program Excelles).

Authors

• Jiří Drábek (Institute of molecular and translational medicine, Faculty of medicine and Dentistry, Palacky University Olomouc, Czechia)
• Lucie Kotková (Institute of molecular and translational medicine, Faculty of medicine and Dentistry, Palacky University Olomouc, Czechia)
• Martin Loskot (Institute of molecular and translational medicine, Faculty of medicine and Dentistry, Palacky University Olomouc, Czechia)
• Shira Vinitzky (Institute of molecular and translational medicine, Faculty of medicine and Dentistry, Palacky University Olomouc, Czechia)
• Ondřej Fischer (Teaching Hospital Olomouc, Czechia)