Plant Protection Department, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, P.O. Box 2460, Riyadh 11451.
Ghazi University, Dera Ghazi Khan, Punjab, Pakistan.
Cell Mol Biol (Noisy-le-grand). 2024 Oct 8;70(9):189-197. doi: 10.14715/cmb/2024.70.9.26.
Termites are economically important wood-destroying and agricultural pests. The termite fauna almost consists of 2900 described species in 286 genera worldwide. In the present study, hundreds of termite samples from 42 different locations in the Riyadh province were collected. These samples were previously used for morphometric identification and reported two subterranean termite species, Coptotermes heimi and Psammotermes hypostoma, in the family Rhinotermitidae. In the present study, these samples were analysed using DNA barcoding with the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 gene to confirm the conventional taxonomical identification on a molecular basis. The obtained COI gene sequences of all 42 termite specimens were submitted to GenBank (accession numbers: ON529959-ON529969, OP825131-OP825132, and OP890882-OP890910). Eleven of the 42 samples were thus identified as C. heimi and the remaining 31 samples as P. hypostoma, which were phylogenetically analysed. All the 11 C. heimi sequences were grouped in a single clade, indicating close relatedness. While 31 sequences of P. hypostoma constituted two clades in the phylogenetic tree. Pairwise nucleotide sequence identity and divergence analysis showed that C. heimi sequences showed high nucleotide identities of 87.6-99.5% and less divergence ranging from 0.5% to 13.6%. Similarly, sequences of P. hypostoma also showed high nucleotide identity of 78.6-100% and low divergence among them ranging from 0-10.7%. A further application, significance, and shortcomings of COI-based DNA barcoding have been discussed. DNA barcoding using the COI gene is a reliable tool to distinguish C. heimi and P. hypostoma genotypes.
白蚁是具有经济重要性的木材破坏者和农业害虫。全球范围内，白蚁动物区系几乎由 286 属的 2900 种描述物种组成。在本研究中，从利雅得省 42 个不同地点收集了数百个白蚁样本。这些样本以前曾用于形态计量学鉴定，并报告在 Rhinotermitidae 科中存在两种地下白蚁物种，即 Coptotermes heimi 和 Psammotermes hypostoma。在本研究中，使用线粒体细胞色素 c 氧化酶亚基 1 基因的 DNA 条形码技术对这些样本进行了分析，以在分子基础上确认传统的分类学鉴定。所有 42 个白蚁标本的 COI 基因序列均已提交给 GenBank（登录号：ON529959-ON529969、OP825131-OP825132 和 OP890882-OP890910）。因此，其中 11 个样本被鉴定为 C. heimi，其余 31 个样本被鉴定为 P. hypostoma，并对其进行了系统发育分析。所有 11 个 C. heimi 序列均被归为一个单系群，表明它们密切相关。而 31 个 P. hypostoma 序列在系统发育树中构成了两个分支。核苷酸序列比对和分歧分析表明，C. heimi 序列的核苷酸同一性较高，为 87.6-99.5%，差异较小，范围为 0.5%-13.6%。同样，P. hypostoma 的序列也表现出较高的核苷酸同一性，为 78.6-100%，差异较小，范围为 0-10.7%。还讨论了 COI 基 DNA 条形码的进一步应用、意义和缺点。使用 COI 基因的 DNA 条形码是区分 C. heimi 和 P. hypostoma 基因型的可靠工具。
