(269) Taxonomic Relationship of Korean Native Aster, Based on Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) Sequences of Nuclear Ribosomal DNA

Abstract

There are 25 species of aster in Korea. There is a controversy about the taxonomical classification of Aster. The genus Aster was classified into four genera, Aster, Gymnaster, Kalimeris, and Heteropappus, by morphological characters. In order to clarify the phylogenetic position of aster, the nucleotide sequence of the nuclear ribosomal DNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region was compared among 11 taxa in Korean native aster. The size of ITS1 and ITS2 ranged from 283 to 286 bp and from 251 to 257 bp, respectively. The size of 5.8S region was 164 bp in 11 taxa. The total length of ITS1, 5.8S and ITS2, A. tripolium was shown to be the shortest length, 701 bp; and A. scaber was shown to be the longest length, 706 bp. The G+C content of ITS1 ranged from 47.9% to 51.2% and ITS2 ranged from 52.2% to 55.1%. The range of each taxon was narrow. The total length of the character matrix was 708 characters. Among them, total indel showed 9; in the ITS1 region indel showed 6 it was 67%; and in the ITS2 region, indel showed 3. Most of the indels showed deletion or insertion of only one base pair, but in A. spathulifolius deleted two base pairs and in A. tripolium deleted five base pairs. But in A. yomena, A. hayatae, A. koraiensis, and A. hispidus, the indel was not detected. Phylogenetic trees did not even make a difference inter-genus, but A. yomena and A. koraiensis called genus Kalimeris and genus Gymnaster, respectively; these constituted a clade. A. hispidus called genus Heteropappus was placed as a sister group to the clade of A. ageratoides and A. glehni.