12221 10.30848/PJB2023-6(18) <p> DNA barcode for phylogenetic analysis of genus <em>Morus </em>species from Azad Jammu and Kashmir</p> Shoukat Hussain, Rehana Asghar, Muhammad Ajaib, Imran Ali, Muhammad Faheem Siddiqui, Samma Ain and Muhammad Sufian <p> The identity and interrelationship of <em>Morus</em> species were confirmed and authenticated in the current research effort using DNA barcode analysis as a molecular technique. Chloroplast DNA of Specimens were evaluated through PCR, Sequence homology and Neighbor-Joining (NJ) clustering. Sequence recoveries of the <em>rbc</em>L and <em>mat</em>K were 91.66 &amp; 88.88% respectively. All the samples with <em>matK</em> depict BLAST similarity more than 96% with sequence cover higher than 75%, whereas in case of <em>rbc</em>L BLAST similarity was greater than 97% along with more than 74% sequence coverage. The <em>mat</em>K phylogenetic tree diagram; revealed five main divergent groupings and a few subgroups. The first three groups comprised <em>M. alba </em>varieties. Group four consists of one <em>M. alba </em>and two<em> M. macroura</em> variants. <em>M. alba </em>V1 is present on a separate node. Varieties of <em>M. macroura</em> resemble one another more than sibling taxa. Group five is the largest group comprising four subgroups and five varieties of two species. Variants of <em>M. nigra</em> belong to various subgroups and are spread across various intra-species evolutionary nodes. Variants of <em>M. serrata</em> are connected. The hierarchical clustering of <em>rbc</em>L observed to consist of five main groups and several smaller ones. <em>M. macroura </em>and<em> M.</em> <em>serrata </em>varieties are included in group one. <em>M. serrata </em>species were closely resembling, whereas<em> M. macroura </em>species were located on distinct nodes, indicating small differences<em>. </em>2^nd and 3^rd groups represent variants of <em>M. alba</em>. The fourth and 5^th group includes <em>M. nigra</em> varieties, with V1 and V2 showed close relationship. The barcoding method divided our subject strains into different groups, which strengthened the identification process. <em>rbc</em>L genes had a maximum rate of conservation than <em>mat</em>K. According to the <em>rbc</em>L alignment all 12 sequences had at least 91.6% identity at the 91.4% of sequence coverage. The results of <em>mat</em>K were somewhat diverged sharing a minimum of 69.3% identity and 67% sequence coverage. The findings show that <em>rbc</em>L and <em>mat</em>K markers can efficiently distinguish between species. Additionally, our research could be useful for identifying other species of <em>Morus</em> and contribute to the taxonomy of the genus</p> Published 2023 55 6 2211 2220