Combining immunological and molecular data to assess phylogenetic relations of some Greek Podarcis species

Abstract

Most recent molecular studies revealed the phylogeny of Greek Podarcis species, which for years remained elusive, due to discordant data produced from various chromosomal, complement fixation and protein studies. In this report, we analyzed cellular immune responses of spleen-derived lymphocytes from six allopatric Podarcis species encountered in Greece, by assessing two-way mixed lymphocyte reaction (MLR)-induced proliferation. On the basis of stimulation indices (S.I.) as determined from cultures set up from xenogeneic splenocytes coincubated in pairs, we generated a phylogenetic tree, fully consistent with the phylogenetic relationships of Podarcis as determined by parallel analyses based on partial mitochondrial (mt) DNA sequences. Although the exact mechanisms triggering lymphocyte responses in lizard two-way xenogeneic MLR are not fully understood, our results show the potential use of cell-mediated immune responses as an additional approach to mtDNA analysis, for species delimitation within specific lizard taxa.