Development of DNA barcode for freshwater microalgae species revealing it’s evolutionary insights on diversity in Noyyal river of Western ghats, India

Abstract

The identification of microalgae is extremely difficult solely based on morphological features. DNA based classification is particularly performed for unveiling cryptic diversity at various taxonomic levels and identifying species where structural characteristics are few or difficult to ascertain. The efficiency of DNA barcoding in recognizing microalgae involves generation of multiple gene markers and phylogenetic approaches that are however attaining significance. In this study, the feasibility of using DNA markers to identify a diverse and also poorly known group of green microalgae isolated from freshwater of Siruvani, Coimbatore was evaluated. DNA extracted from 23 freshwater microalgae cultures (Karunya Algae Culture Collection) was amplified using 18S, 28S, ITS and 18S region specific for Chlorophyaceae with amplification success rate of 86.95%, 82.60%, 43.47% and 69.59% respectively. Ambiguity among the 22 out of 23 microalgae isolates was unveiled using the results generated from the phylogenetic analysis and morphological data, thus confirming the taxonomical identity. Generated sequences of KACC microalgae were deposited in GENBANK and BOLD database for further use as reference barcodes for microalgae identification. In conclusion our findings highlight barcode database as powerful tool in microalgae identification and further it uncover new perspectives in species diversity on a global scale.