Chrysomya putoria was introduced into Brazil around 1975 from Africa and had spread through South America, representing a species of medical, sanitary and forensic importance. The mtDNA control region of C. putoria has been sequenced, presenting a length of 1008bp and a bias towards A+T content (88,6%). The characterization of this region allowed the identification of the conserved A domain and a hipervariable B domain. The B domain sequence analysis provided a complete tRNA duplication inserted in this subregion. The amplification of ~500bp of the A domain allowed the comparative analysis of museum-preserved and fresh samples of C. putoria Brazilian populations, showing a A+T content equivalent to 91%. The previously described conserved sequence blocks (CSBs) were delimited for C. putoria species and the sequences could be aligned to other Calliphoridae species, improving the variability analysis for this region. The lack of genetic variability found in the A domain of C. putoria populations could be related to the functional and structural importance of the CSBs located in this subregion and also due to the population bottleneck during the introduction of C. putoria into Brazil. The alignment and phylogenetic analysis of the A domain provided the identification of C. albiceps specimens that have been previously identified as C. putoria, showing that molecular markers can be a reliable and helpful tool for species identification. The yielding of DNA sequence data for a variety of taxa can be useful for comparative analysis, providing a source of polymorphic markers for population genetics and phylogenetic reconstruction.
Species 1: Diptera Calliphoridae Chrysomya putoria (green blow fly)
Keywords: control region, museum specimens
Back to Display Presentations, Section D. Medical and Veterinary Entomology
Back to Posters
Back to The 2002 ESA Annual Meeting and Exhibition