[Regular Paper] Decision Theory-Based DNA Barcoding Through Quick Response Code Representation

Abstract

DNA barcoding is widely used in fields, such as taxonomy and species identification. Conventional DNA barcoding sequences employ uninformative or repeat nucleotides in known groups of taxa within a monophylum. Herein, we propose a decision theory-based DNA barcode that tests for the ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase gene (rbcL). The proposed method can generate shorter DNA barcodes called single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) tags, which shorten rbcL sequences from their full length (400–654 bp) to 25-bp DNA tags. These DNA tags are then represented by quick response (QR) codes containing the species names, accession numbers, and DNA tag sequences. Our proposed method can efficiently reduce data storage and provide DNA barcoding for various plant species.