PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS OF URTICA SPP. BY THE INTERNAL TRANSCRIBED SPACER (ITS) OF 18S-26S rDNA IN ORDU PROVINCE OF TURKEY

Abstract

Twenty Urtica spp. samples collected from different geographic locations in Ordu province of Turkey were examined by using 18S-26S rDNA the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) nucleotide sequences. Neighbor-Joining (NJ), Maximum-Parsimony (MP) and Maximum-Likelihood (ML) algorithms were conducted to evaluate the phylogenetic relationships between our samples and references from GenBank. The phylogenetic trees drawn with NJ, MP and ML algorithms showed similar topologies with minor differences. Two Urtica species within our samples (Ulubey-U5 and Fatsa-U6) were placed in the same lineage with Urtica dioica and Urtica kioviensis. Ulubey-U5 appeared as sister to U. dioica with 97.7% nucleotide sequence similarity and the pair wise genetic divergence was 0.0242. This relation was supported with 60% and 74% bootstrap values in the NJ and ML trees, respectively. The nucleotide sequence similarity and the pairwise genetic divergence between Fatsa-U6 and U. kioviensis were 98.7% and 0.0109. This relation was supported with 88%, 79% and 85% bootstrap values in the NJ, MP and ML trees, respectively. This study is the first report about phylogenetic relationships of Urtica species by rDNA-ITS molecular marker in investigated area.