Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 8, 2025

A Concoction Pipeline for Generating Molecular Operational Taxonomic Units (MOTUs) Among Riparian and Aquatic Beetles
Published on: July 11, 2025
Understanding the molecular evolution of tiger diversity through DNA barcoding marker ND4 and NADH dehydrogenase
Chiranjib Chakraborty1,2, Ashish Ranjan Sharma3, Garima Sharma4
1Institute For Skeletal Aging and Orthopedic Surgery, Hallym University-Chuncheon Sacred Heart Hospital, Chuncheon, 200704, Republic of Korea. drchiranjib@yahoo.com.
Background:
Currently, Tigers (the top predator of an ecosystem) are on the list of endangered species. Thus the need is to understand the tiger's population genomics to design their conservation strategies.
Objective:
We analyzed the molecular evolution of tiger diversity using NADH dehydrogenase subunit 4 (ND4), a significant electron transport chain component.
Methods:
We have analyzed nucleotide composition and distribution pattern of ND genes, molecular evolution, evolutionary conservation pattern and conserved blocks of NADH, phylogenomics of ND4, and estimating species divergence, etc., using different bioinformatics tools and software, and MATLAB programming and computing environment.
Results:
The nucleotide composition and distribution pattern of ND genes in the tiger genome demonstrated an increase in the number of adenine (A) and a lower trend of A+T content in some place of the distribution analysis. However, the observed distributions were not significant (P > 0.05). Evolutionary conservation analysis showed three highly align blocks (186 to 198, 406 to 416, and 527 to 545). On mapping the molecular evolution of ND4 among model species (n = 30), we observed its presence in a broader range of species. ND4 based molecular evolution of tiger diversity and time divergence for a tiger (20 different other species) shows that genus Panthera originated more or less at a similar time.
Conclusions:
The nucleotide composition and nucleotide distribution pattern of tiger ND genes showed the evolutionary pattern and origin of tiger and Panthera lineage concerning the molecular clock, which will help to understand their adaptive evolution.
Related Concept Videos
Evolutionary Relationships through Genome Comparisons
Modern Molecular Taxonomy
Applications of Molecular Taxonomy
Gene Evolution - Fast or Slow?
In contrast, regions which code...
Gene Evolution - Fast or Slow?
Gene Duplication and Divergence
The duplicated copies of the gene are called Paralogs. Paralogs with similar sequences and functions form a gene family. Across several species, a large number of gene families are...

