Abstract
The DNA barcoding technology uses a standard region of DNA sequence for species identification and discovery. At present, “DNA barcode” actually refers to DNA sequences, which are not amenable to information storage, recognition, and retrieval. Our aim is to identify the best symbology that can represent DNA barcode sequences in practical applications. A comprehensive set of sequences for five DNA barcode markers ITS2, rbcL, matK, psbA-trnH, and CO1 was used as the test data. Fifty-three different types of one-dimensional and ten two-dimensional barcode symbologies were compared based on different criteria, such as coding capacity, compression efficiency, and error detection ability. The quick response (QR) code was found to have the largest coding capacity and relatively high compression ratio. To facilitate the further usage of QR code-based DNA barcodes, a web server was developed and is accessible at http://qrfordna.dnsalias.org. The web server allows users to retrieve the QR code for a species of interests, convert a DNA sequence to and from a QR code, and perform species identification based on local and global sequence similarities. In summary, the first comprehensive evaluation of various barcode symbologies has been carried out. The QR code has been found to be the most appropriate symbology for DNA barcode sequences. A web server has also been constructed to allow biologists to utilize QR codes in practical DNA barcoding applications.
Highlights
The DNA barcoding technology uses a short standard piece of DNA sequence for species identification and has gained wide acceptance as a standard and effective method for biodiversity research, conservation genetics, wildlife forensics, and so on
It is found that the sizes of the barcodes increase with the length of the DNA barcode sequences derived from the five DNA barcode markers (Fig. 2 and Tables S3)
The aim of the current study is to identify the best type of barcode to represent DNA barcode sequences
Summary
The DNA barcoding technology uses a short standard piece of DNA sequence for species identification and has gained wide acceptance as a standard and effective method for biodiversity research, conservation genetics, wildlife forensics, and so on. The 648 bp region of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (CO1) gene has been accepted as the DNA barcode for animals [1,2]. Two chloroplast genes, namely, rbcL and matK, were proposed by the plant working group of the Consortium for Barcode of Life (http://www.barcodeoflife.org/) as core barcodes [3] after integrating the results obtained from a number of studies [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]. The intergenic transcribed spacer (ITS) and its subsequence (ITS2) have been proposed as additional core barcodes [13]. Through numerous studies, consensus has been reached for core barcodes for animals and plants to date
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
