DNA barcoding of the Indian blackbuck (Antilope cervicapra) and their correlation with other closely related species

Abstract

Background: Sequence divergence in mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I genes (COI) has been used as an efficient forensic tool in solving wildlife-related problems and also be used in molecular taxonomy for species identification. Methods: This study presents the DNA barcode sequences of the Blackbuck (Antilope cervicapra) from Haryana, India. A dataset of 43 partial COI sequences of 13 species belonging to 4 genus of Antilopinae sub-family were used for molecular analysis and to construct the phylogenetic tree to elucidate the species diversity among sub-family Anitlopinae. The data comprised of generated sequences of the Blackbuck (n = 22) and with additional COI sequences of the related species (n = 21) showing maximum homology with Blackbuck COI sequence were downloaded from NCBI-GenBank for wide coverage of inter and intra-specific nucleotide diversity. Results: Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that the studied COI region provided accurate species clustering showing their importance in wildlife species identification. The intra-specific sequence divergence of all the studied Antilopinae species was observed 0.47% (<1%). Specifically in the studied genus-Antilope, it was observed 0.3%. Whereas the interspecific divergence was in the range of 0.3-12.6% among 13 species from 4 genus. The highest interspecific divergence was observed among Antilope cervicapra and Gazella erlangeri (12.6%). Conclusion: The developed species-specific barcoding (COI) sequence of Indian Blackbuck from Haryana, India, demonstrated their high potential to identify Blackbuck from their sympatric species in wildlife-related crimes and in conservation activities. Published Barcode sequences in the both database serve as a wildlife forensic tool to solve Blackbuck related crimes. This study supports the credibility of DNA Barcoding in forensic investigation and wildlife conservation and also emphasized the need for species barcode database from each country to assist in solving wildlife related offenses.

Utility of mitochondrialCOI gene for identification of wild ungulate species of conservational importance from Pakistan

“…The overall sequence divergence patterns were consistent with many previous studies (Kumar et al 2017;Bhaskar et al 2020). Sequence divergence within each ungulate species was <1.…”

“…The advancement in species identification research using molecular techniques, particularly DNA barcoding has been a great milestone in determining ungulate diversity worldwide. It has been applied to studies regarding biodiversity, phylogeny, food adulteration cases, illegal trades of ungulates and their manufactured products (Kumar et al 2017;Zhong et al 2017;Khan et al 2018;Shukla et al 2019;Bhaskar et al 2020). However, most of the ungulate diversity of Pakistan has not yet been studied through mitogenome analysis and has been restricted to the pioneer morphological studies conducted by Schaller (1980), Mirza (1998), andRoberts (1997).…”

Genetic Diversity of Crossbred Cattle using Cytochrome Oxidase Subunit I (COI) Gene in South Sulawesi, Indonesia

“…Results of the analysis of genetic distance between purebreed, CB cattle and B. taurus was in the range of 0.000 Genetic Diversity of Crossbred Cattle using Cytochrome Oxidase Subunit I (COI) Gene in South Sulawesi, Indonesia to 0.297. The result was in accordance with Kumar et al (2017b) who stated that the genetic diversity of COI gene in the Bovidae was between 0.0 and 1.92%. In this study showed that seven purebreed cattle might be grouped into B.taurus because it had a genetic distance of 0.000 (Angus, Brahman and Simmental), while Limousine has a genetic distance of 0.002 and Madura with a value of 0.013.…”

First Molecular Detection of Polychromophilus Parasites in Brazilian Bat Species

“…Alternatively, for some specimens, a fragment with ~650 bp from the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase (coi) gene was amplified by two methods: (i) using the primers VF1_t1 (5 -TGT AAA ACG ACG GCC AGT TCT CAA CCA ACC ACA AAG ACA TTG G-3 ) [26] and VR1_t1 (5 -AGG AAA CAG CTA TGA CTA GAC TTC TGG GTG GCC AAA GAA TCA-3 ) [27] with PCR conditions and cycling from Kumar et al [28], and (ii) using the universal primers LCO 1490 and HCO 2198 [29] and PCR protocol based on Ruiz et al [30].…”