Molecular Identification of Necrophagous Muscidae and Sarcophagidae Fly Species Collected in Korea by Mitochondrial Cytochrome c Oxidase Subunit I Nucleotide Sequences

Abstract

Identification of insect species is an important task in forensic entomology. For more convenient species identification, the nucleotide sequences of cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene have been widely utilized. We analyzed full-length COI nucleotide sequences of 10 Muscidae and 6 Sarcophagidae fly species collected in Korea. After DNA extraction from collected flies, PCR amplification and automatic sequencing of the whole COI sequence were performed. Obtained sequences were analyzed for a phylogenetic tree and a distance matrix. Our data showed very low intraspecific sequence distances and species-level monophylies. However, sequence comparison with previously reported sequences revealed a few inconsistencies or paraphylies requiring further investigation. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first report of COI nucleotide sequences from Hydrotaea occulta, Muscina angustifrons, Muscina pascuorum, Ophyra leucostoma, Sarcophaga haemorrhoidalis, Sarcophaga harpax, and Phaonia aureola.

The First Survey of Forensically Important Entomofauna Collected from Medicolegal Autopsies in South Korea

“…Polymerase chain reaction was performed mainly to amplify the barcoding regions located within the upstream third portion of COI . Primer sequences, which were adopted from a previous study, are listed in Table 1 [ 6 ]. After automatic sequencing using an ABI Prism 3720xl genetic analyzer (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA), nucleotide sequences were aligned and compared with preexisting nucleotide sequences using MEGA6 Software [ 22 ].…”

“…Therefore, several researchers have investigated the entomofauna that are attracted to human cadavers in various geographic regions [ 3 – 5 ]. In Korea and neighboring East Asian countries within a similar temperate climate zone, the DNA of dipteran species that are attracted to pork liver baits or pig carcasses has been analyzed for species identification [ 6 – 11 ]. However, there has been no survey of carrion insects visiting human cadavers in the temperate climate zone of East Asia despite medicolegal autopsies being quite actively performed.…”

Molecular Species Identification of Six Forensically Important Iranian Flesh Flies (Diptera)

“…At present, such practice are being increased for species of the genus Sarcophaga , since COI sequence database has been developed for 12 species from the south of the Czech Republic ( 12 ), for seven species within Canada and the USA ( 6 ), for 17 Malaysian, two Indonesian, one Japanese species ( 40 ), for 16 Australian species ( 26 ), for 56 species in West Europe ( 25 ), for several Chinese species ( 23 , 24 , 28 ), for six Korean species ( 27 ), ten Iranian species ( 41 ) and recently for ten Indian species ( 29 ). However, a database for other regions in the world is lacking.…”

Genetic Diversity in the Camel Tick <i>Hyalomma dromedarii</i> (Acari: Ixodidae) Based on Mitochondrial Cytochrome c Oxidase Subunit I (COI) and Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA Polymerase Chain Reaction (RAPD-PCR)

“…Other studies reported low genetic diversity when using COI gene. In a study on molecular identification of necrophagous Muscidae and Sarcophagidae fly species by COI, the data showed very low intraspecific sequence distances and species-level monophylies [22]. The COI gene was used successfully in conducting an assessment of genetic variability in dog ticks [23].…”