Scientists have discovered that a piece of plant DNA can be used as a universal "bar code" to identify flowering plants, thus helping the study of biodiversity.
They also hope that it can be used to track endangered plant species and check whether they have been illegally transported.
The research group, led by Imperial College of Technology in London and Vincent Savolainen of the Royal Botanic Garden, published their research results in the "Journal of the National Academy of Sciences" published on February 4.
Although the DNA barcoding technique—differentiating different species with a special DNA region—has been used in animals, such a single, universal DNA fragment has not yet been found in flowering plants.
Scientists discussed various DNA fragments (possibly used for the barcode of life). Savolainen and colleagues tested eight such fragments in more than 1600 plant samples, mainly from orchids in Costa Rica and other plants in Kruger National Park in South Africa - these sites were selected because of their extraordinary biological diversity. Sex.
They found that a special part of a gene called matK was easy to use and had a suitable "barcode difference" - the gap between species was large enough, and the degree of similarity within a species was also large enough to be used Species identification.
Savolainen said in a press release: “In the future, we would like to see that this idea of ​​reading plant genetic barcodes will translate into a portable device that can be brought into any environment and quickly and easily analyze the matK of any plant sample. Gene and compare it with a huge repository of information for almost instant identification.â€
Eldredge Bermingham, a senior scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, eagerly awaits the scientific community to adopt a plant barcode.
"A plant lags behind animals in the bar code of DNA. It is simply because there is no agreement. If the [scientific community] decides to use the matK gene, it will promote the field of botany and help it catch up."
Bermingham told this site that this will in particular benefit developing countries interested in using DNA sequences to identify their natural heritage.
Bermingham said that because DNA sequencing technology has become so popular, even if MatK is later found to be the wrong barcode, the new "barcode" can be easily applied. Scientists have established a library of plants and their DNA.
However, he pointed out that in this study, matK was only used to identify “relatively different†plants. "We need to know if matK can be used for missions when it is used in a wide range of tropical biodiversity - I think it is still a problem to be solved."
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