The genetic variation of the genus Moltkia Lehm. (Boraginaceae) from Iran based on nrDNA ITS Sequence Data

چکیده مقاله

Boraginaceae is one of the largest angiosperm families, comprising approximately 100 genera and almost 2000 species distributed worldwide. The genus Moltkia Lehm. belongs to the tribe Lithospermeae. This genus has about 9 species. In order to study the genetic variations of different species, nucleotide sequence data from the internal transcribed spacer of the nuclear rDNA genes (ITS) were obtained. Total genomic DNA was isolated from dried leaves using the standard CTAB extraction protocol. The ITS regions of each sample were amplified by PCR employing ITS4 and ITS5 primers. ITS sequences were aligned with Bioedit Vers. 7.0.9. and adjusted manually. The ITS sequence of Lithospermum afromontanum Weim. and Lithospermum cinereum Dc. were included in the analyses as outgroups. The aligned ITS data matrix (with outgroup) consisted of 698 characters, of which 615 characters are constant; 14 variable characters are parsimony-uninformative and 69 parsimonyinformative characters were detected. The aligned data matrix was reconstructed by parsimony optimality criterion using PAUP* ver. 4.0b10. Support for clades were evaluated by bootstrapping using 1000 replications with the heuristic search option. The monophyly of Moltkia is confirmed by high bootstrap support value of 100 %. The ingroup falls into two clades: M. longifolia separated from others in one clade and other species constitute the second clade with high BS of 99%.