Sequencing of ITS rDNA, Multiple Alignments and Phylogeny of a New Isolate of Entomopathogenic Nematode (Steinernema sp.) from Bilaspur District, Chhattisgarh Dubey Jola, Tiwary B.N.1, Ganguly Sudershan* Division of Nematology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-110012, India 1School of Biotechnology, Guru Ghasidas University, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh-495001, India *E-mail: sg_nema@yahoo.com Abstract The purified PCR- amplified ribosomal DNA of a new Steinernema isolate IARI-EPN-chh1 was sequenced and the length of ITS region was found to be of 992 bp. The base sequence of ITS region of rDNA of IARI-EPN-chh1 exhibited maximum similarity with S. carpocapsae (98%), followed by S. sasonense (95%), S. bakanense (93%) and S. siamkayai (89%), from which it could be further differentiated by characteristic sequence of their ITS regions, including sequence lengths and composition, and differences in base characters in sequence alignment. In Bootstrap analysis IARI-EPN-chh1 was most closely related to S. carpocapsae. These two species showed close resemblance in most of their morphological features of infective juveniles. Conclusively, IARI-EPN-chh1 with its distinctive position in the phylogenetic tree was well separated from other species of the genus. It is indicated that this isolate from Chhattisgarh might be representing a new species of Steinernema, which however needs to be supplemented with morphological data of its 5 life stages. Top Keywords Entomopathogenic nematode, ribosomal DNA, bootstrap analysis, phylogenetic tree, Steinernema sp. SGchh1, GenBank Accession No. 6Q438788, Chhattisgarh. Top |