DNA Barcoding, Mathew, Ebby
College of Science and Mathematics
Professor: Dr. Brenda Whaley
DNA barcoding is a tool that uses a region of DNA for species identification. The region that is used in plants is ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase / oxygenase (rbcL) which is found in chloroplast DNA and is involved in photosynthesis. rbcL is chosen because it is easily retrievable, well suited for high-quality bidirectional sequences, and is the best option for species discrimination from previous studies. In this study, a leaf was removed from a plant at HCU (29.69531 °N, -95.51533 °W). The DNA sequence was extracted from the rbcL gene, amplified (Polymerase chain reaction), underwent thermal cycling and gel electrophoresis, and was sent to GeneWiz Inc for DNA sequencing. Based on the results from sequencing, a BLAST search matched the plant the rbcL sequence to one that was the most similar, or has highest identity. The BLAST search suggested that leaf extracted at 29.69531 °N, -95.51533 °W belongs to the Alpinia zerumbet plastid, also known as Shell ginger, and had a 99% identity.
