CHARACTERISTICS OF THE trnL GENE REGION AND PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS OF Hoya parasitica (Roxb.) Wall. ex Wight

Abstract

In plants, finding specificity DNA barcodes for species identification is still tricky. Several chloroplast gene regions have been studied and proposed as DNA markers for species identification. The trnL gene region in the chloroplast genome consists of intron trnL(UAA) located between two exons in the large single-copy region and intron trnL(UAA), which is a hypervariable region. Hoya parasitica (Roxb.) Wight) of the Hoya genus is a precious herbal plant. H. parasitica leaves have been used to treat some diseases in humans. The question is, is it possible to use the trnL gene region as a barcode to identify H. parasitica species when the plant samples are deformed or in powder form? This study presents the results of characteristics of the trnL gene region by amplification and nucleotide sequencing method and analysis of molecular evolution using MEGAX; simultaneously suggests potential barcodes for species identification of H. parasitica. The isolation and nucleotide sequencing results showed that the trnL gene region was 829 bp in size. The phylogenetic tree was built based on 32 trnL sequences, showing species distributed in 5 groups and samples H. parasitica TN1 and H. pubicalyx distributed in the same group. The trnL gene region is proposed as a potential chloroplast DNA barcoding candidate for H. parasitica species identification.