Genetic structure of a morphological species within the amoeba genus Korotnevella (Amoebozoa: Discosea), revealed by the analysis of two genes.

  • publication
  • 07-09-2016

Zlatogursky VV, Kudryavtsev A, Udalov IA, Bondarenko N, Pawlowski J, Smirnov A. Eur. J. Protistol. 2016 Aug;56():102-111. S0932-4739(16)30059-1. 10.1016/j.ejop.2016.08.001.

Amoebae of the genus Korotnevella are covered with scales, the structure of which is believed to be species-specific and allows distinguishing species reliably at the morphological level. We studied members of this genus in order to assess the genetic structure of the local populations of amoebae. For the present study we isolated nine freshwater strains of Korotnevella, belonging to three species, from two locations in North-Western Russia. In order to obtain data on the population structure of these amoebae, we identified all isolates based on the light-microscopic morphology and scale structure and investigated both inter-strain and intra-strain polymorphism of Cox I and 18S rRNA genes. Results show that both genes provide congruent patterns of population structure. The Cox I gene appears to be more reliable DNA barcode while the 18S rRNA gene shows an interesting pattern of polymorphism, which may represent phylotypes of amoebae. Local population of amoebae in every studied species consists of a number of genetic lineages (phylotypes), some shared between the populations while others are unique to a local habitat.

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