We have discovered what could be a novel planarian in a unique, isolated aquatic environment. Preliminary COI sequencing and a BLAST search reveals only about 81% similarity to anything published. This makes me more optimistic about its possible uniqueness. Am I right? We plan to sequence 18S and 28S plus other segments. However, I am doubly out of my field since I know very little about planarians or using molecular evidence to establish the worm's uniqueness. I have undergraduates working on the project. Any suggestions for where to go from here or how to find someone who might be interested in collaborating?
It may or may not be a new species. I am not sure how many species have been described and characterized by non-genetic sequence methods (such as for example by DNA:DNA hybridization, protein 2D gel electrophoresis, macroscopic morphology, or other methods). There are only a few dozen Planarian mitochondrial genomes or COI genes deposited in GenBank so far so your new sequence will have value even if it is from a described and named species (one for which the COI gene has not been deposited in GenBank yet).
I am attaching 18S ribosomal RNA and mitochondiral COI gene alignments and trees built from them.
Hi David,
you can also take a look at the UCSC website (http://genome-euro.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgGateway?redirect=manual&source=genome.ucsc.edu) where they reference some worm annotations.
use the BLAT tool (http://genome-euro.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgBlat?hgsid=231464858_fUss04qcVfbpB2tyAMtp4bAs4xMM&command=start) and see what next with your own sequences.
for memories, there is only 1% difference between human and ape genomes...
fred
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