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Actins are highly conserved proteins that are involved in various types of cell motility and are ubiquitously expressed in all eukaryotic cells. In vertebrates, three main groups of actin isoforms namely alpha, beta, and gamma have been identified. The alpha actins are found in muscles with contractile functions whereas beta and gamma actins co-exist in the cytoskeleton. For establishing evolutionary inter-relationship, sequence analysis and alignment of protein sequences, seems to be crucial. In the present study, a bioinformatics approach has been adopted to explore the sequence, structure and phylogenetic analysis of β-actin protein from eight commercially important fishes and compared with the standard sequences like 1HLU Bos taurus, 2OAN Bos taurus and 2BTF Bos taurus, which were predicted to be the closest homologs for the 11sequences of the β actin protein of 8 fishes. From the comparative analysis it was concluded that 1HLU Bos taurus affords highest sequence coverage with low E-value with the 11 sequences of eight fishes under study. Presence of conserved residues in the sequences and the phylogenetic relationship among fishes with respect to the β-actin protein, have been discussed.

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Identification of fish species have so far been carried out mostly by classical morpho-taxonomy. In the present study, however, an attempt has been taken to identify two species of fishes Ulua mentalis and Pinjalo pinjalo of order Perciformes which happens to be the first record in Odisha coast Bay of Bengal, India during the year 2015, using DNA barcoding technique for reconfirmation over conventional morpho-taxonomy. During recent past, study of molecular-taxonomical profile of mitochondrial DNA in general and Cytochrome Oxidase subunit I (COI) gene in particular has gained enormous importance for accurate identification of species. In the present study, the partial COI sequence of Ulua mentalis and Pinjalo pinjalo were generated. Analysis using the COI gene produced phylogenetic trees in concurrence with other multi gene studies and we came across the identical phylogenetic relationship considering Neighbor-Joining and Maximum Likelihood tree. Moreover, these molecular data set further testified in Bayesian framework to reevaluate the exact taxonomic groupings within the family. Surprisingly, Ulua mentalis and Pinjalo pinjalo seems to be closely related to their sister taxa.