Assessment of Genetic Relationship of Freshwater Fish Species from Anuppur District, Madhya Pradesh Using Mitochondrial COI Gene Sequences

Abstract

The present study aimed to evaluate the genetic relationships among the selected 12 freshwater fish species using the mitochondrial cytochrome C oxidase I (COI) gene sequences. The sequence data were retrieved from NCBI and analyzed the Multiple sequence alignment, Genetic distance estimation using the Kimura2-parameter model and phylogenetic tree construction using the neighbor-joining technique. The result revealed the conserved and the variable regions with in the COI gene and also showed that closely related species exhibit lower genetic distance and clustered together, especially in the cyprinidae family. while, the distantly related species form separate branches which indicates the higher genetic divergence. Some minor deviations observed in the clustering patterns maybe due to the limitation of single-gene analysis. Overall, the study demonstrates that the COI gene is an important molecular marker fir the identification of species and phylogenetic analysis, with application in conservation studies and biodiversity assessment.