Title: Interspecific phylogenic relationships within genus Melilotus based on nuclear and chloroplast DNA

Authors: Hongyan Di, Zhen Duan, Kai Luo, Daiyu Zhang, Fan Wu,Jiyu Zhang*,Wenxian Liu and Yanrong Wang

Journal: PLoS ONE

Impact Factor:3.234

Abstract: Melilotuscomprises 19 species, while the phylogenetic relationships between species are remain unclear. In the present work, three chloroplast genes,rbcL, matK, trnL-F, and one nuclear region, ITS (internal transcribed spacer) belonging to 48 populations of 18 species of Melilotus were sequenced and phylogenetic trees were constructed to study their interspecific relationships. Based on the phylogenetic tree generated in this study using rbcL analysis,the Melilotusgenus is clearly monophyleticin the legume family. Both Bayesian and maximum-parsimonyapproaches were used to analyze the data. The nrDNA ITS provided more informative characteristics (9.8%) than cpDNA (3.0%). Melilotuscontains two closely related groups, clade I and clade II.M. spicatus, M. indicusandM. segetalis have a close relationship. M. infestus, M. siculus and M. sulcatus are closely related.The comparing between molecular phylogeny and flower color classification in Melilotusshowed that the flower color is not much informative for phylogenetics of this genus.