Universality Assessment of matK Primer Pairs in Seed Plants / 世界科学技术-中医药现代化

ABSTRACT

matK is one of the core DNA barcode markers for plant DNA barcode identification and its universality using single makers has been in controversy. However, the universalities of different matK primer pairs in same seed plant group (order) and same matK primer pairs in different seed plant groups (order) are lack of systematic research. In this study, we collected 14563 full-length matK sequences of 11429 species of 3292 genera in 239 families belonging to 36 orders in seed plants. The universalities of 13 matK primer pairs and its 78 primer com-binations have been assessed using bioinformatics methods. The results indicated that xf/5r, 1F/8R, 390F/1326R and 3F_KIM/1R_KIM were the four most universality primer pairs. The four markers' universalities were 91.18%, 84.65%, 79.81% and 80.94% respectively in all 11429 seed plants. The most universality primer pairs in different orders were different. For each order, the primer pair with maximum universality was different. the xf/5r was the basal primer pair for primer combination and 1F/8R, 1F/1R, M3/M4 and 3F_KIM/1R_KIM could be the complementary primer pairs. This study could be a valuable resource for the primer selection of the research DNA barcoding identification in seed plants.