University of Georgia, Griffin Campus, Department of Entomology, Griffin, GA 30223, USA.
Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2010 Feb;54(2):664-9. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2009.07.036. Epub 2009 Aug 4.
Compensatory base changes (CBCs) in the ribosomal RNA (rRNA) internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) secondary structures have been used to successfully verify the taxonomy of closely related species. CBCs have never been used to distinguish morphologically indistinct species. Under the hypothesis that CBCs will differentiate species in higher eukaryotes, novel software for CBC analysis was applied to morphologically indistinguishable insect species in the genus Altica. The analysis was species-specific for sympatric Altica beetles collected across four ecoregions and concordant with scanning electron microscopy data. This research shows that mining for CBCs in ITS2 rRNA secondary structures is an effective method for eukaryotic taxon analysis.
核糖体 RNA（rRNA）内部转录间隔区 2（ITS2）二级结构中的补偿碱基变化（CBCs）已被成功用于验证密切相关物种的分类学。CBC 从未被用于区分形态上无差别的物种。在 CBC 将区分高等真核生物物种的假设下，针对形态上无法区分的 Altica 属昆虫物种应用了用于 CBC 分析的新型软件。该分析针对在四个生态区收集的同种 Altica 甲虫具有物种特异性，并与扫描电子显微镜数据一致。这项研究表明，在 ITS2 rRNA 二级结构中挖掘 CBC 是一种有效的真核分类分析方法。
