Abstract
Developing informative DNA markers facilitate understanding of the evolution of parrotfish biological resources. Therefore, we present a comparative analysis among a group of tmo-4C4 gene fragment sequences identified in some parrotfish species (Scarus russelii, S. ghobban, S. ferrugineus, S. fuscopurpureus, S. psittacus and Chlorurus sordidus) and other tmo-4C4 gene sequences (obtained from NCBI). Nucleotide composition, sequence conservation, single nucleotide polymorphism and nucleotide diversity were calculated in all estimated DNA sequences. The evaluated fishes were clustered into two groups (Scaridae and Labridae). The GC and GC(3) contents in Scaridae were higher than in Labridae. Averages of genetic distances were 0.046 and 0.095 within Scaridae and Labridae respectively. Analysis of nucleotide variations was used to reconstruct phylogenetic relations among evaluated fish species.
Maximum Likelihood and Neighbor-Joining methods on the resulting DNA sequences produced parallel topologies that confirm the monophyly of each evaluated fish family. S. psittacus is distantly related from both S. russelii and C. sordidus. The low distance was observed between S. psittacus and S. fuscopurpureus. The tmo-4C4 gene system provides a reliable solution for understanding parrotfish species biodiversity and evolution. This study provides a guide for future investigations within these aquatic biological resources in the Red Sea.