Avicennia genus molecular phylogeny and barcoding: A multiple approach
From Firenze University Press Journal: Caryologia
Laleh malekmohammadi, Department of Plant Sciences and Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shahid Beheshti University
Masoud Sheidai, Department of Plant Sciences and Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shahid Beheshti University
Farrokh GhahremaninejadDepartment of Plant Sciences, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Kharazmi University
Afshin DanehkarDepartment of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran
Fahimeh KoohdarDepartment of Plant Sciences and Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shahid Beheshti University
The genus Avicennia contains of 8 species which show a great extent of morphological and genetic variability, which make taxonomy of the genus difficult. Molecular barcoding along with advancement in computational approaches may be proper methods to investigate and assess the efficiency of different molecular genetic regions in Avicennia species delineation and also produce data on species evolution and diver-gence. The aims of present study were to utilize multiple genetic data for the species delineation and study the phylogeny of the genus. Moreover, we developed a hypoth-esis on biogeography of these species with respect to barcode divergence. The results showed that both Internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and trnHG–psbA intergenic spacer (trnHG-psbA) sequences may be used in Avicennia species delineation. Barcode gap analysis and nucleotide difference of the studied taxa showed significant Fst for pair-wise species comparison and the role of nucleotide changes in Avicennia speciation.
DNA barcoding is applied to plant and animal species with the aim to improve organismal identification and taxonomic clarification. The main principles of DNA barcoding are standardization, minimalism, and scalability, which means selection one or a few standard loci that can be sequenced routinely and reliably in very large and diverse sample sets, and obtaining a reliable and conveniently comparable data to differentiate the species in question from one another (Hollingsworth et al. 2011).
Controversy exits on the use and choosing the plant molecular barcode markers. Different researches resulted in general agreement that several different marker combinations produce equivalent performance, and that none of the proposed barcodes is perfect in every respect (Seberg and Petersen 2009). Utilizing a multiple approach for a better species differentiation has been suggested by several authors (see for example, Fazekas et al. 2008). In most of the studies, researchers use of a common, easily amplified and aligned region such as rbcL, trnL-F spacer regions, mat K, trnHG-psbA, nrITS1, nrITS2or the full ITS1–5.8S-ITS2 (nrITS), as suggested by the CBOL Plant Working Group and BOLD (Cbol 2009; Ratnasingham and Hebert 2007). The genus Avicennia is composed of eight species of mangrove trees which grow in intertidal zones in tropi-cal and temperate regions of the world. These plant spe-cies are economically important as they are extensively used as medicinal plants. In fact, different parts of these plants have ethno medicinal applications for treatment of various diseases such as cancer, diabetes, malaria, rheumatism, asthma, small pox and ulcer (Hrudayanath et al. 2016).
These species show variation and are taxonomically complex due to vast geographical distribution and introgressive hybridization (Mori et al. 2015). There-fore, the aims of present study are: 1- Assessment of different molecular markers in Avicennia species delineation through barcode analysis, 2- Species relationships based on molecular markers, and 3- Biogeographical distribution of these species with regard to DNA sequence divergence.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/caryologia-1592
Read Full Text: https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/caryologia/article/view/1592
