<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-family: Mangal;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language: HI" lang="EN-GB">Phylogenetic rearrangement of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Streptomyces</i> spp. on the basis of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region using molecular morphometrics approach</span>

Abstract

<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Streptomycetes</i>, the Gram positive bacteria commonly found in soil, are among the well known antibiotic producers of microbial world. Moreover, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Streptomyces</i> spp. produce about 75% of commercially and medically useful antibiotics. They have provided more than half of the naturally occurring antibiotics discovered to date and continue to be screened for useful compounds. Most taxonomic and phylogenetic characterizations of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Streptomyces </i>have focused on primary DNA information targeting linear 16S rRNA and ITS sequences. However, RNA secondary structures are particularly not been used for such taxonomic studies, especially the systematics analysis based on “molecular morphometrics information” that are usually not found in the primary sequences. The molecular morphometrics approach has been employed in the present study for comparing the primary and secondary structure information of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Streptomyces</i> spp. using bioinformatics tools. It is an established fact that rRNA structure is highly conserved throughout evolution as most of the folding is functionally important despite primary sequence divergence. The analysis revealed considerable differences between the conventional liner rRNA based phylogeny and the phylogenetic alignment using molecular morphometrics tools.