Molecular characterization and phylogenetic analysis of cyclopoid copepod Mesocyclops leuckarti using mtCOI

Copepods are the most abundant metazoan zooplankton amongst multicellular animals. The present study was performed to establish the sequence variation of partial mitochondrial Cytochrome c Oxidase I gene (COI) from Mesocyclops leuckarti collected from the Retteri Lake, Chennai in order to identify and describe their genetic divergence along with the phylogenetic relatedness with other species. DNA of individual M. leuckarti was extracted and the partial mitochondrial COI gene was successfully amplified using the universal primers LCO-1490 and HCO-2198. A 576bp partial mitochondrial COI gene sequence was obtained. Analysis of partial COI sequences of M. leuckarti exposed 93% similarity amongst all the individual of copepods selected from Genbank. The obtained COI sequences of Cyclopoid copepod was confirmed with BLAST analysis. Phylogenetic analysis of M. leuckarti along with selected out groups from different taxa level further supports the clarity and maintained the authentic of taxonomy up to the subclass level: Copepoda. The results showed that, the COI barcoding of cyclopoid copepod species could be distinguished from the others very clearly. Thus, it strongly indicated that COI may be a useful construction of a comprehensive DNA barcode database for copepods inhabiting the freshwater bodies in Chennai.