Genetic Diversity of Urtica species in Ordu Province of Turkey based on chloroplast DNA trnL- F intergenic spacer regions

The main goal of this study is to determine genetic differences of Urtica spp. which are one of the most common weed species in the hazelnut and uncultivated areas of Ordu province in the Black Sea Region, by using primers specific to chloroplast trnL–F intergenic spacer. Twenty Urtica spp. samples were collected from hazelnut gardens and uncultivated areas in Ordu province. DNA extraction was made by modifying the CTAB (hexadecyl-trimethyl-ammonium bromide) protocol. The sequence data of these samples were compared with the reference sequences retrieved from GenBank for the chloroplast DNA trnL-F intergenic spacer region. Genetic distances among the sequences were calculated using MEGA6 packet program, and phylogeny trees were drawn using these data sets. Four Urtica samples (Fatsa 1-U1, Ulubey-U2, Persembe 1-U3 and Altinordu 3-U4) among our samples were selected and used in phylogenetic analysis. Our species were placed in the same lineage group with Urtica dioica. Fatsa 1-U1 and Ulubey-U2 appeared to have close to U. dioica (KF138424) with 99.2 % and 99.7 % nucleotide sequence similarity. This relations were supported with 100 %, 100 % and 99 % bootstrap values in the NJ, MP and ML trees, respectively. The nucleotide sequence similarities of Persembe 1-U3 and Altinordu 3-U4 with U. dioica (AY208725) were 99.5 % and 100 %, and bootstrap values of this species were 67 %, 64 % and 64 % in the NJ, MP and ML