rDNA Barcode Base Molecular Identification and Evaluation of Genetic Connectivity of Channa marulius in Major Rivers of Pakistan

Channa is a critical genus with a large number of species and it has a key importance in aquaculture. Channa marulius (snakehead) is a commercially important food fish of Pakistan. The status of C. marulius is indigenous and acquired near threatened according to the survey of the IUCN. Therefore, in the present study, 15 fish specimens were collected from five rivers (Indus, Chenab, Ravi, Satluj, and Jhelum) of Punjab, Pakistan, and successfully amplified and barcode the short mitochondrial COI gene sequences of 599 base pairs and analyzed by using BLAST. Pairwise genetic distance evaluated the K2P (Kimura 2-parameter) model, and phylogenetic analysis was inferred by constructing the ML (maximum likelihood) tree based on the Tamura-Nei model by using MEGA-X software. BLAST analysis provided a 100% identity match with reference sequences of the GenBank database and confirmed the species as C. marulius. The pairwise K2P distance between species observed (0.0000%) and the maximum distance (0.0067%). The ML tree showed that species lie under the same node because these species have the same genus, and C. marulius species identified from Pakistan have a phylogenetic link with C. marulius species of India. The present study successfully reported the DNA barcode base molecular identification of C. marulius from Pakistan. Moreover, this study proved that mitochondrial COI gene barcoding can be effectively used for the identification of Channa.