Genetic Variation Analysis of Mitochondrial cox1 and nad4 Genes of Ascaridia galli

To study the genetic variations of Ascaridia galli (A. galli) and the phylogentic relationships with other Ascaridata, fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (cox1) gene and complete sequence of NADH dehydrogenase subunit 4 (nad4) gene of 15 adult A. galli isolated from Xichang city in Sichuan province were amplified by PCR, then analyzed the sequences. NJ trees and Bayes trees based on pcox1 and pnad4 genes were reconstructed. The partial sequences of cox1 gene and complete sequence of nad4 gene were 1 152 and 1 236 bp, respectively. There were 33 and 40 variable sites in the pcox1 and nad4 gene sequences, the intraspecific sequence variations within A. galli were 0 to 2.1% for pcox1 gene, 0 to 2.3% for nad4 gene. 8 and 11 haplotypes were detected in pcox1 and nad4 genes, the global haplotype diversity were 0.733±0.124 and 0.933±0.054, the nucleotide diversities were 0.00433±0.00153 and 0.00541±0.00157, and the average genetic distances were 0.004 and 0.005, respectively. Phylogenetic trees based on pcox1 and pnad4 genes with Neighbour-Joining and Bayesian analysis method revealed that all A. galli were clustered in one clade, and they were more closely related to A. columbae than any other members of Ascaridata. These findings indicated that 15 isolates of A. galli from Xichang city kept low genetic variation, nad4 gene was more suitable and effective than cox1 gene as molecular marker for detecting genetic variation of A. galli.