TY - JOUR
T1 - Enhanced primers for amplification of DNA barcodes from a broad range of marine metazoans
AU - Lobo, Jorge
AU - Costa, Pedro M.
AU - Teixeira, Marcos A. L.
AU - Ferreira, Maria S. G.
AU - Costa, Maria Helena Ferrão Ribeiro da
AU - Costa, Filipe Oliveira
N1 - This work was supported by FEDER through POFC-COMPETE and by national funds from "Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT)" in the scope of the grants FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-015429 and PEst-C/BIA/UI4050/2011. Jorge Lobo is supported by a FCT PhD grant (SFRH/BD/69750/2010). Pedro M Costa is supported by a FCT post-doc grant (SFRH/BPD/72564/2010). Filipe O Costa benefitted from the Marie Curie European Reintegration Grant PERG02-GA-2007-224890, provided by the European Commission. The authors would also like to thank Carolina Madeira and Monica Landi for the initial molecular experiments, Luisa Borges and Ronaldo Sousa for the support on collections, Catia Bartilotti (IPMA), Nuno Gomes (CBMA) for the offer of crustacean specimens and Artur Oliveira (CBMA) for the alga specimen.
PY - 2013/9/10
Y1 - 2013/9/10
N2 - BACKGROUND: Building reference libraries of DNA barcodes is relatively straightforward when specifically designed primers are available to amplify the COI-5P region from a relatively narrow taxonomic group (e.g. single class or single order). DNA barcoding marine communities have been comparatively harder to accomplish due to the broad taxonomic diversity and lack of consistently efficient primers. Although some of the so-called "universal" primers have been relatively successful, they still fail to amplify COI-5P of many marine animal groups, while displaying random success even among species within each group. Here we propose a new pair of primers designed to enhance amplification of the COI-5P region in a wide range of marine organisms. RESULTS: Amplification tests conducted on a wide range of marine animal taxa, rendered possible the first--time sequencing of DNA barcodes from eight separated phyla (Annelida, Arthropoda, Chordata, Cnidaria, Echinodermata, Mollusca, Nemertea and Platyhelminthes), comprising a total of 14 classes, 28 orders, 57 families, 68 genus and 76 species. CONCLUSIONS: These primers demonstrated to be highly cost-effective, which is of key importance for DNA barcoding procedures, such as for building comprehensive DNA barcode libraries of marine communities, where the processing of a large numbers of specimens from a wide variety of marine taxa is compulsory.
AB - BACKGROUND: Building reference libraries of DNA barcodes is relatively straightforward when specifically designed primers are available to amplify the COI-5P region from a relatively narrow taxonomic group (e.g. single class or single order). DNA barcoding marine communities have been comparatively harder to accomplish due to the broad taxonomic diversity and lack of consistently efficient primers. Although some of the so-called "universal" primers have been relatively successful, they still fail to amplify COI-5P of many marine animal groups, while displaying random success even among species within each group. Here we propose a new pair of primers designed to enhance amplification of the COI-5P region in a wide range of marine organisms. RESULTS: Amplification tests conducted on a wide range of marine animal taxa, rendered possible the first--time sequencing of DNA barcodes from eight separated phyla (Annelida, Arthropoda, Chordata, Cnidaria, Echinodermata, Mollusca, Nemertea and Platyhelminthes), comprising a total of 14 classes, 28 orders, 57 families, 68 genus and 76 species. CONCLUSIONS: These primers demonstrated to be highly cost-effective, which is of key importance for DNA barcoding procedures, such as for building comprehensive DNA barcode libraries of marine communities, where the processing of a large numbers of specimens from a wide variety of marine taxa is compulsory.
KW - DNA barcoding
KW - Marine metazoans
KW - Taxonomy
KW - Universal primers
U2 - 10.1186/1472-6785-13-34
DO - 10.1186/1472-6785-13-34
M3 - Article
C2 - 24020880
VL - 13
JO - Bmc Ecology
JF - Bmc Ecology
SN - 1472-6785
M1 - 34
ER -