DNA BARCODE FOR PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS OF GENUS MORUS SPECIES FROM AZAD JAMMU AND KASHMIR

The identity and interrelationship of Morus species were confirmed and authenticated in the current research effort using DNA barcode analysis as a molecular technique. Chloroplast DNA of Specimens were evaluated through PCR, Sequence homology and Neighbor -Joining (NJ) clustering. Sequence recoveries of the rbcL and matK were 91.66 & 88.88% respectively. All the samples with matK depict BLAST similarity more than 96% with sequence cover higher than 75%, whereas in case of rbcL BLAST similarity was greater than 97% along with more than 74% sequence coverage. The matK phylogenetic tree diagram; revealed five main divergent groupings and a few subgroups. The first three groups comprised M. alba varieties. Group four consists of one M. alba and two M. macroura variants. M. alba V1 is present on a separate node. Varieties of M. macroura resemble one another more than sibling taxa. Group five is the largest group comprising four subgroups and five varieties of two species. Variants of M. nigra belong to various subgroups and are spread across various intra-species evolutionary nodes. Variants of M. serrata are connected. The hierarchical clustering of rbcL observed to consist of five main groups and several smaller ones. M. macroura and M. serrata varieties are included in group one. M. serrata species were closely resembling, whereas M. macroura species were located on distinct nodes, indicating small differences. 2nd and 3rd groups represent variants of M. alba. The fourth and 5th group includes M. nigra varieties, with V1 and V2 showed close relationship. The barcoding method divided our subject strains into different groups, which strengthened the identification process. rbcL genes had a maximum rate of conservation than matK. According to the rbcL alignment all 12 sequences had at least 91.6% identity at the 91.4% of sequence coverage. The results of matK were somewhat diverged sharing a minimum of 69.3% identity and 67% sequence coverage. The findings show that rbcL and matK markers can efficiently distinguish between species. Additionally, our research could be useful for identifying other species of Morus and contribute to the taxonomy of the genus.