MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF THE BARCODE REGION OF ANOPHELES PSEUDOPUNCTIPENNIS S.L. (DIPTERA: CULICIDAE) FROM CORDOBA, COLOMBIA

GOMEZ, G. F. (1), Altamiranda, M. A. (1), Luckhart, S. (2), Conn, J. E. (3), Correa, M. M. (1)

(1) Grupo de Microbiología Molecular, Escuela de Microbiología, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia
(2) Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of California at Davis, United States of America
(3) Griffin Laboratory, Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health; Department of Biomedical Sciences, State University of New York, United States of America

Lightning Talk, Parasites and Vectors, Innova B21, Saturday, 11:00 to 11:15
Poster Location: B62

The taxonomic status of Anopheles pseudopunctipennis as a single species or a species complex is controversial. This species has been incriminated as a secondary malaria vector in Colombia. DNA barcoding using a standard fragment of the mitochondrial gene COI as a method for species identification is rapidly increasing in acceptance. This study aims to characterize and evaluate the intraspecific sequence variability of a 655-pb barcode region in specimens Anopheles pseudopunctipennis from Puerto Libertador, Cordoba, Colombia. Of 24 specimens analyzed, 16 haplotypes were detected (Hd: 0.95); from 108 polymorphic sites (16.48%), 63.33% were transitions and 36.67% transversions (the majority, >95%, were silent mutations). Translation revealed 3 non-synonymous mutations that demonstrated intraspecific divergence also at the protein level. No stop codons or indels were found. The BOLD IDS system revealed high identity of the most frequent haplotype with Anopheles pseudopunctipennis (98.45%). Mean intraspecific pairwise distance comparisons based on K2P was 4.8% (0-16%), showing high intraspecific variability. Considering that the reported barcode intraspecific variability for invertebrates is rarely >2%, we propose to further evaluate the phylogenetic relationship of this taxon, testing a greater number of specimens from other localities of the country, using this and other markers.

Keywords: Insects, Invertebrates - Terrestrial, Disease Vectors/Pathogens/Parasites, Data Analysis, BARCODE Data Standard