Korean J Leg Med.  2006 Oct;30(2):154-159.

Comparison of Mitochondrial Cytochrome Oxidase Subunit I (CO I) Sequences of Five Blow Fly Species in Korea

• Zhang Y
• Park SH
• Yu DH
• Yu GY
• Jung HJ
• Jo TH
• Hwang JJ

Abstract

In criminal investigations, the accurate identification of specimens must be a vary important procedure in the estimation of post-mortem interval(PMI) using insect specimens. However, the morphological-based identification method has many limitations, as species identification for immature stages of many species being difficult or impossible, and more convenient methods are needed to identify necrophagopus fly species. So, many authors have proposed DNA-based methods for identifying fly specimen because of identifying all life stages of carrion flies. In this study, we sequenced a part of mitochondrial cytochrome oxodase subunit I (COI) for each five blow fly species [Hemipyrellia ligurriens, Lucilia illustris, Phaenicia sericata, Chrysomya. megacephala, Chrysomya pinguis] collected from the rural and urban regions in Korea, and compared 400 nucleotides of one species with those of another species. Percent similarity of sequence compared was highest value between Ch. pinguis and Ch. megacephala (97.8%), and lowest one between H. ligurriens and Ch. pinguis(89.2%). Maximun intraspecific variation was observed in L. illustris (0.5%). In conclusion, the experimental results indicate that sequence analyses of more necrophagous flies collected from various regions of Korea should be performed to construct a database of mitochondrial CO I of necrophagous fly species.

Keyword

illustris; sericata; megacephala; pinguis; ligurriens; forensic entomology; mitochondrial DNA; CO I

MeSH Terms

Criminals
Cytochromes*
Diptera*
DNA, Mitochondrial
Electron Transport Complex IV*
Humans
Insects
Korea*
Nucleotides
Sequence Analysis
Cytochromes
DNA, Mitochondrial
Electron Transport Complex IV
Nucleotides