DNA-BASED SPECIES IDENTIFICATION OF FOUR IMPORTANT CYPRINIDAE FISH IN THE NORTH OF VIETNAM

Abstract

The four Cyprinidae fish including Cyprinus carpio, Semilabeo notabilis, Spinibarbus denticulatus and Bangana sp. are valuable fish for aquaculture and fish conservation in the North of Vietnam. DNA-based molecular method is a potential technique for fish species identification and genetic analysis. In this study, 21 mitochondrial DNA cytochrome oxidase I (COI) sequences of the four Cyprinidae fish were collected from previous projects of Research Institute for Aquaculture No.1 and minned on GenBank for further analysis of molecular identification. The nucleotide discrimination showed higher average AT content (55.17%) compared to average GC content (44.84%) in the Cyprinidae fish. The obtained sequences were compared to the GenBank database (NCBI) using the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST), a total of 37 sequences with high percentage identity (92.88 to 99.84%) were found. Phylogenetic tree analysis for 58 COI sequences revealed four main branches corresponding to the four genera in the Cyprinidae. The mean genetic Kimura 2 - parameter distances illustrated the close relationship diversity between species (0.004 to 0.058) and genera (0.105 to 0.151). Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis of all species in the study revealed distinct features regarding unique sites (31 sites) for four species. DNA sequence based QR codes were generated based on the short sequence of COI containing SNP data for accurate identification of fish species. In addition, the results showed the high Potential of using the DNA-based method to identify Cyprinidae fish in Vietnam.