Phylogenetic analysis of chloroplast matK gene from Zingiberaceae for plant DNA barcoding

MaturaseK gene (MatK) of chloroplast is highly conserved in plant systematics which is involved in Group II intron splicing. The size of the gene is 1500 bp in length, located with in the intron of trnK. In the present study, matK gene from Zingiberaceae was taken for the analysis of variants, parsimony site, patterns, transition/tranversion rates and phylogeny. The family of Zingiberaceae comprises 47 genera with medicinal values. The matK gene sequence have been obtained from genbank and used for the analysis. The sequence alignments were performed by Clustal X, transition/transversion rates were predicted by MEGA and phylogenetic analyses were carried out by PHYLIP package. The result indicates that the Zingiberaceae genus Afromonum, Alpinia, Globba, Curcuma and Zingiber shows polyphylogeny. The overall variants between the species are 24% and transition/transversion rate is 1.54. Phylogenetic tree was designed to identify the ideal regions that could be used for defining the inter and intera-generic relationships. From this study it could be concluded that the matK gene is a good candidate for DNA barcoding of plant family Zingiberaceae.