Species identification of Vietnamese shark samples by DNA barcoding
Dr K. Thomas Jensen
Aarhus Universitet
"I have contracted AllGenetics to identify human-attacking sharks from Vietnamese waters – and they have been very helpful and efficient"
Goal
Dr K. Thomas Jensen (Aarhus Universitet) was interested in using DNA barcoding to identify a number of sharks sampled off Vietnamese waters. He contacted us and we suggested to follow a DNA barcoding approach.
Approach
At AllGenetics, DNA was isolated from either liver or pectoral fin tissue samples using a commercial kit. Then, we designed two primer pairs to amplify fragments of the mitochondrial regions COI and NADH that we used as DNA barcodes. The PCR products obtained were bi-directionally sequenced and the electropherograms were analysed. The primer annealing regions were deleted and the ambiguous bases were manually corrected. The resulting sequences were identified to the lowest taxonomic level by comparing them against DDBJ/ENA/GenBank (International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration) and BOLD (the Barcode of Life Data Systems) databases.
Results
The DNA barcoding analysis showed that the shark samples belonged to two different species, Carcharhinus amboinensis and C. amblyrhynchoides.