Relationships and DNA Polymorphism within and between Marine Microalgae from the Yellow Sea

Relationships and DNA Polymorphism within and between Marine Microalgae from the Yellow Sea

Genomic DNAs were isolated from marine microalgae cultured and purified from the Yellow Sea and genetic characteristics and genomic polymorphisms were investigated by polymerase chain reaction amplification of DNA with arbitrary primers. The electrophoretic analyses of polymerase chain reaction-random amplified polymorphic DNAs (PCR-RAPD) products showed high levels of variations between different genera and significant variations between different species (P<0.05). Individual fragments generated using the same arbitrary primer, demonstrated thaI a single primer 'detected at least three independent genomic polymorphisms in microalgae. There were observed a total of 119 genetic markers within the genus Pavlova.. On average, random RAPD primers produced 5.0 amplified products. The average number of bands produced by random RAPD primer MSP-I (TICGAGCCAG) was 5.3 in the genus Pavlova. The arbitrary primer MSP-8 (TGAGTGGGTG) yielded the highest number of fragments with the average of 6.8 among the primers used. The bandsharing (BS) value between the species Chaetoceros calcitrians and C. neogracile was 0.86 with the primer MSP-I. BS values between the species Pavlova lutheri and P. gyralls varied from 0.35 to 0.63. The genetic similarity frequency within the genus Pavlova was 0.80, and the average genetic similarity within the genus Chaeroceros was 0.88. The genetic similarity frequency between the genus Pavlova and Chaeroceros showed 0.27. The genetic similarity frequency of C. gracilis were higher with C. calcirrans than that with C. neogracile within the genus Chaetoceros. The species of C. gracilis appeared to be rather closely related to C. calcirrans. In this study, the R.APD outlines obtained with DNA of not only different microalgae genera but also species from the Yellow Sea in Korea were very or more or less different. Obvious genetic divergence was found between the two genera such as Pavlova and Chaetoceros. The RAPD markers generated by these primers used in this study for DNA polymorphism may be one of the suitable tools for genus or species identification in important marine microalgae.