Protein profiling for phylogenetic relationship in snakehead species

Abstract

Protein banding pattern of eight snakeheads – Channa species viz., Channa striatus, Channa marulius, Channa punctatus, Channa diplogramme, Channa bleheri, Channa gachua, Channa stewartii and Channa aurantimaculata collected from different regions of India were used to study the phylogenetic relationship among them. The banding pattern from muscle protein indicated a unique profile for each species and the electrophoregrams showed similarities among the species studied. In the SDS-PAGE, a maximum of 12 protein bands were obtained for C. gachua followed by 11 for C. diplogramme and 10 for C. marulius whereas less number of bands were recorded for the remaining species. Molecular weight of the protein bands varied from 16 kDa - 232 kDa. UPGMA (Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Mean) dendrogram revealed that the phylogenetic relationship was very close among C. aurantimaculata and C. bleheri and also between C. gachua and C. stewarti.