Molecular Phylogenetic Analysis of Turbo brunneus (R.1798), Cypraea annulus (L.1758) and Babylonia spirata (L.1758)

Over the past few decades, biologists from many disciplines have turned to phylogenetic analyses to interpret variation in biological systems. Phylogenetic relationships with a high potential in the absence of sufficient morphological characters can be resolved by molecular phylogenetic techniques according to coded characters. A number of mtDNA genes have been targeted in marine gastropods for phylogenetic purpose; these include the ribosomal RNA genes 28S, 18S, 16S and 12S, Cytochrome oxidase I (COI) and cytochrome b (Cyt-b). In the present study, SSU rRNA in Turbo brunneus, 18S rRNA in Cypraea annulus and COI gene in Babylonia spirata were successfully amplified and sequenced. Phylogenetic tree of the three species were constructed by using neighbor-joining tree. The optimal tree with the sum of branch length = 1.47445020 was observed. Turbo brunneus was phylogenetically closer to the clade of Cypraea annulus than that of Babylonia spirata. The mitochondrial genomes are informative for mollusc phylogeny, which give a proper phylogenetic approach.