Exploring α Tropomyosin as a Molecular Marker for Studying Higher-Level Phylogenetics in Commercial Fish

Pei-Yao Huang¹, Chao-Hsin Wu¹, Shu-Chi Cho², and Ming-Chih Huang¹

1. Department of Biological Science and Technology, National University of Tainan, Taiwan

2. Institute of Chemistry, the National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan

Abstract: The fishery is an important industry, so how to operate sustainably is always an important issue. Therefore, Understanding the evolutionary relationships between different fish species is necessary to formulate different policies. Tropomyosin is now considered a molecular marker of fish phylogeny, but studies on higher-level phylogenetics are lacking. Tropomyosin is a structural protein located in muscle cells. It has the same conservative characteristics as RAG-1 (recombination activating gene 1), which is commonly used in higher-level phylogenetic studies in birds. Therefore, this study hopes to explore the feasibility of tropomyosin as a molecular marker for fish higher-level phylogenetic studies by comparing α tropomyosin with five mitochondrial DNA. In this study, the Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis X (MEGA X) software was used to draw a phylogenetic tree for α-tropomyosin and 5 mitochondrial DNA genes in 32 fish. The results show that the fish skeletal muscle α tropomyosin amino acid phylogenetic tree compared to other molecular markers of mitochondrial DNA in a cohort is more similar to the phylogenetic tree established by Betancur-R in 2017.  Therefore, it proves that fish skeletal muscle α tropomyosin amino acid has the potential to be a molecular marker for fish higher-level phylogenetic research.