Abstract

Ola Hataf Hazim, Mohammed Ayyed Najm, Zaid Osamah Ibraheem

Lots of debates has been risen up about the genetic rapport among species of Apiaceae family. Till now there is no quite suitable contemporary categorization at hand. This study aimed at sequencing the 18S ribosomal RNA gene (ITS gene) in three plants in this family, namely; Apium graveolens, Petroselinum crispum and Coriandrum sativum. This is to see if there is any genetic variation among them. Briefly, the plants were collected and their DNA was extracted, exposed to PCR amplification and Sangar sequencing to determine the genetic sequence of the 18S rRNA gene of each specie and compare it with a reference gene from the gene bank. The results showed that the gene was 99% identical with that of the standard of the gene bank for each of the Coriandrum sativum and Apium graveolens. While the percentage was100 % for Petroselinum crispum. This suggests that the mentioned gene was identical in the three species and excludes the incidence of any significant variation within this gene.