Suriana, Jamili, Taufik Walhidayah, Abd Muis
Conopomorpha cramerella Snellen (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae) is an important pest in agricultural crops. This insect is distributed in Southeast Asia and the West Pacific; especially as a pod borer in cocoa plants. These insects are small in size, and act as pests at the larvae development. Morphological identification is difficult because of the limitations of the key to larvae identification. Therefore, the molecular method is an alternative to overcome this. The COI gene (Cytochrome C oxidase subunit 1), is a gene that is widely used in the world as a tool for species identifier, even as an animal DNA barcode. There have been previous attempts like this, however, it is still very important to develop primers that can be used in a wide range. This study attempts to infer the COI gene sequence of C. cranemella using COI primers that have been carried out on taxa other than insects. C. cramerella genomic DNA was amplified using primers by PCR method. The amplification results were then sequenced, then aligned with the COI gene sequences available in GenBank. The results showed that the amplification of the COI gene with the primer used succeeded in distinguishing between and between populations without overlapping (there was a barcode gap). The genetic distance between species is 0.00 to 0.007 and the genetic distance between species is 0.02 to 0.167. This indicates that the primer is strong to be used as a COI gene and a tool to find species. The reconstructed phylogeny performance based on the COI sequence of C. cramerella 632 bp long, clearly differentiated between species. © 2023 American Institute of Physics Inc.. All rights reserved.
Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, Halu Oleo University, Southeast Sulawesi, Kendari, 93231, Indonesia; Department of Food Science, College of Food Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Hubei, Wuhan, 430070, China; Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, Makassar State University, South Sulawesi, 90221, Indonesia
