Different sources of mitochondrial DNA for phylogenetics studies in New World Monkeys

M.S. ASCUNCE, L. OKLANDER , M. D. MUDRY

FOLIA PRIMATOLOGICA

Karger

Lugar: Basel; Año: 2003 vol. 74 p. 165 - 167

0015-5713

Nowadays non-invasive genotyping of wild and captive animals is the challenge. In this contribution, we compare different sources of DNA, such as blood and hair, in the amplification and sequencing of two mitochondrial genes: COII (cytochrome c oxidase subunit II) and the control region or D-loop. We focus our research in arboreal New World Monkey (NWM) species: Alouatta caraya, Ateles paniscus, Cebus apella, Saimiri boliviensis and Aotus azarae since there are not many studies that employing hairs as source of DNA in these monkeys. Three DNA extraction methodologies were tested, one employing 5% Chelexâ 100 (BioRad) mixture, the second one involved phenol / chloroform extraction and the last one was a commercial silica-based kit (QIAGEN). For hair samples, the extraction methods using Chelexâ were attempted many times without obtaining amplification products. Both organic extraction and silica-based method had succeeded in amplify mt genes. This example further suggests that mt gene amplification and sequencing from DNA extracted from hairs can be applied successfully for molecular studies from different New World Monkeys species and yield comparable results to DNA extracted from blood samples. This approach allows for genetic studies of wild and captive animals without having to obtain blood sample via the stressful of vein puncture, and hopefully in a near future without having to catch them.