Application of deoxyribonucleic acid barcoding in Lauraceae plants.

BACKGROUND

This study aims to determine the candidate markers that can be used as DNA barcode in the Lauraceae family.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Polymerase chain reaction amplification, sequencing efficiency, differential intra- and interspecific divergences, DNA barcoding gap, and identification efficiency were used to evaluate the four different DNA sequences of psbA-trnH, matK, rbcL, and ITS2. We tested the discrimination ability of psbA-trnH in 68 plant samples belonging to 42 species from 11 distinct genera and found that the rate of successful identification with the psbA-trnH was 82.4% at the species level. However, the correct identification of matK and rbcL were only 30.9% and 25.0%, respectively, using BLAST1. The PCR amplification efficiency of the ITS2 region was poor; thus, ITS2 was not included in subsequent experiments. To verify the capacity of the identification of psbA-trnH in more samples, 175 samples belonging to 117 species from the experimental data and from the GenBank database of the Lauraceae family were tested.

RESULTS

Using the BLAST1 method, the identification efficiency were 84.0% and 92.3% at the species and genus level, respectively.

CONCLUSION

Therefore, psbA-trnH is confirmed as a useful marker for differentiating closely related species within Lauraceae.