Molecular identification of mango hoppers infesting mango trees in Punjab through DNA barcoding

Hoppers belonging to Amritodus spp. and Idioscopus spp. have been reported infesting mango trees in India. In this study, the mango hoppers were collected from Patiala (Nabha), Jalandhar and Ludhiana districts of Punjab for their molecular identification using DNA barcoding. The mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (mtCOI) gene from these samples was PCR amplified, cloned in vector and sequenced. The DNA sequences obtained were subjected to analysis through BLASTn programme of NCBI and all three samples were identified as Amritodus atkinsoni with 99% similarity of mtCOI gene sequence. Sequence alignment of 624 bp mtCOI of Amritodus populations showed the changes in nucleotides at 4 different positions. The phylogenetic tree was prepared for mtCOI gene sequences of different populations (number) of A. atkinsoni (1), A. brevistylus (2), Idioscopus niveosparus (1), I. nagpurensis (3) and I. clypealis (1) and populations from Punjab. The tree revealed two Clades, i.e. first corresponding to A. atkinsonii and A. brevistylus, while, Clade 2 consist of three species of Idioscopus with three sub-clusters for each I. clypealis, I. niveosparus and I. nagpurensis. Nucleotide pairwise distances ranged from 0.002 to 0.199. The analysis revealed very low genetic variations among the south and north Indian populations of A. atkinsoni.