DNA BARCODING AND BIOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT ON A FEW MANGROVE PLANT SPECIES OF VISAKHAPATNAM COAST, ANDHRA PRADESH, INDIA

DNA barcoding is currently gaining popularity due to its simplicity and high accuracy as compared to the complexity and subjective biases associated with morphology-based identification of taxa. The standard chloroplast DNA barcode for land plants is normally recommended by the Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) plant working group that needs to be evaluated for a wide range of plant species. In Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh state, there are many natural and manmade seasonal wetlands that serve as important gateways for the migratory waterfowl. Hence these wetlands contribute significantly towards balancing of ecosystem. Many researchers had identified plant species of these wetlands by traditional methods but the aspect of identification of plants through barcoding has largely been ignored. We therefore, tested the potential of the rbcL marker for the identification of Mangrove plants belonging to two families of some wetlands of Visakhapatnam. This had been carried out by rbcL gene as the standard plant barcode Maximum likelihood tree analysis was also performed to evaluate the discriminatory power of the rbcL gene. The classical taxonomic classification was then compared with the classification obtained through DNA Barcode tree. Our findings showed that using rbcL gene sequences, majority of the samples, i.e. (100%) were identified at genus and species level. This research work has revealed the potentiality of three mangrove species having hepatoprotective activity which could be useful in the area of life sciences. Further research work is needed to determine the biologically active molecules from S. prostrata, S. microphylla and S. portulacastrum; this would be the basic platform to be executed in various applications of life sciences. The advancements in DNA barcoding studies helps in better understanding of flora or fauna at species level and could pave a way for proving certain phytochemical, anticancer, antioxidant, hepatoprotective activities at molecular level which is more authenticated.