CLADISTIC ANALYSES OF A FEW MEMBERS OF CUCURBITACEAE USING RBCL NUCLEOTIDE AND AMINO ACID SEQUENCES

• Published in: International journal of bioinformatics research Vol. 1; no. 2; pp. 58 - 64
• Main Author: Reddy, B Uma
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 30.12.2009
• Subjects: Bioinformatics; cladistics; Coccinia; Computer programs; Cucumis; Cucurbitaceae; Evolutionary genetics; Luffa; Mathematics; Momordica; Phylogeny; RbcL gene; software
• ISSN: 0975-3087; 0975-9115
• DOI: 10.9735/0975-3087.1.2.58-64

The rbcL gene and protein sequences have been used in addressing systematic questions among the few selected members of the family Cucurbitaceae has been investigated. In order to elucidate the systematic positions, a set of chloroplast-rbcL nucleotide sequences (from 42 taxa of 7 genera) and aminoacid sequences (from 52 taxa of 10 genera) were withdrawn from GenBank and GenPept databases, respectively. The evolutionary distance was inferred from these sequences by employing Bootstrap method of UPGMA (Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Mean) and MP (Maximum Parsimony) using MEGA (Molecular Evolutionary Genetic Analysis) software. From the separate analysis produced almost similar although not identical results, no strongly supported incongruent results. The members of the genus Austrobryonia showed strictly monophyletic, Trichosanthes, Luffa, Momordica and Coccinia are found to be paraphyletic. But the members of the genus Cucumis are distributed throughout these hiraeoid clades, confirming the polyphyly of this large genus observed in both the family trees. From the results, it is also clear that, the chloroplast-rbcL gene and aminoacid sequences resolved the relationships, as well as provided a good indication of major supra-generic groupings among the selected members of the family Cucurbitaceae. These results provide the necessary frame work and explicit phylogenetic hypotheses from which further reversionary and other systematic studies can proceed.