Three related freshwater eels Anguilla japonica, A. rostrata and A. anguilla were discriminated by RAPD (random amplified polymorphic DNA) and PCR-RFLP (polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism) techniques.
A 410 bp highly conserved segment of mitochondrial cytochrome b gene was amplified, respectively, and phylogenetic relationship was analyzed according to the 374 bp consensus sequences of cytochrome b gene. The results showed that A. rostrata and A. anguilla were most closely related, with the highest 97.6 of percent similarity, while between A. japonica and A. rostrata or between A. japonica and A. angiuilla was with the same percent similarity, 92.0.
Key words: Identification of eel species, RAPD, PCR-RFLP