Identification of Leopoldamys edwardsi in Northern Jiangxi based on COI gene

CHEN Fei; HU Haijun; LIU Zhanbin; TAO Huiying; QIAN Ke; ZHENG Weiqing

doi:10.19821/j.1671-2781.2023.06.004

Abstract：Objective To identify unknown rodentsample by DNA barcoding technology with mitochondrial cytochrome C oxidase subunit(COI)gene as target gene.Methods The density of rodents in a village of Songxi Town,Wuning County,Jiujiang City was determined by the trapping method.Following preliminary morphological identification,a rare large rodent specimen was captured and selected for genomic DNA extraction and the COI gene was amplified using universal primers(BatL5310 and R6036R),then sequenced.BLAST comparison was subsequently carried out in NCBI.The phylogenetic tree was calculated by the Maximum Likelihood method using MEGA7software.Results A total of seven small mammals were captured in northern Jiangxi and the density was 3.38%.Morphological identification revealed the presence of 2 Rattusnorvegicu,2 Apodemus agrarianus,and 2 Suncus murinus.Additionally,a preliminary morphological identification classified one specimen as an unknown rodent,potentially belonging to the species of Berylmys bowersi or Leopoldamys edwardsi.The DNA extracted from the unknown rodent sample successfully amplified the target band of the COI gene through PCR.The COI gene showed high sequence similarities(100%)with the sequences of Leopoldamys edwardsi(KP995219)depoisted in GenBank Sequences of unknown rodent sample and Leopoldamys edwardsi(KP995219,KP995203)were clusteredin the same branch at the phylogenetic tree,and genetic distance was 0,0.0016 respectively.In addition,the Berylmys bowersi(NC_036730)was in another branch alone,and genetic distance was big.Conclusion Leopoldamys edwardsi was initially captured in northern Jiangxi.DNA barcoding is a highly effective approach to rapidly identify rodent species,and useful for the molecular identification of uncommon rodent species.