Phylogenetic Analysis of Eight Malaysian Pineapple Cultivars using a Chloroplastic Marker (rbcL gene)

To date, Malaysian pineapple cultivars has only been characterized morphologically. A more consistent and accurate method such as biomarker is highly crucial to distinguish and establish the genetic relationship between different cultivars. In this work, we conducted a phylogenetic analysis of eight Malaysian pineapple cultivars using a chloroplastic DNA biomarker, ribulose-bisphosphate carboxylase (rbcL) gene. The rbcL gene was isolated from genomic DNA, amplified and sequenced. The rbcL gene of Ananas comosus is approximately 1100 bp. From the multialignment of eight cultivars, the percentage of sequence similarity ranged from 71.1% to 94.98% and is highly conserved throughout the sequences. Phylogenetic analysis which is carried out using maximum parsimony method revealed that the eight Malaysian pineapple cultivars can be classified into two groups. The first group consist of Yankee and Gandul cultivars while Moris, Moris Bentanggur, Moris Gajah, N36, Josaphine and Sarawak falls under the second group. Bootstrap values in some branches are low which reflect the small number of informative characters (981 are conserved, 12 are potentially informative). Formation of several group or subclades is due to its similar genetic pattern, thus supporting this classification. This study confirmed that rbcL gene is a good indicator to determine the phylogenetic relationship distinguishing the Malaysian pineapple cultivars.