Phylotree

The Psilocybe phylogenetic tree or evolutionary tree shown below is a branching diagram or “tree” showing the inferred evolutionary relationships among various cannabis strains—their phylogeny—based upon similarities and differences in their genetic characteristics. Here the genetic characteristics are the identity and frequency of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) in the captured regions of each cannabis strain genome (see description in each Tab under the tree for details). Genetic distance is a summary measure of the genetic divergence between cannabis strains, and the genetic distance of any two strains is approximately proportional to the total length of the radial parts in the path connecting each “leaf”, representing the two strains. SNPs of each strain are identified by DNA sequencing (whole genome shotgun) and bioinformatics analysis from MGC’s Genomics Services.

This phylotree is derived using the intersecting high-quality SNPs from samples analyzed with Whole Genome Sequencing.

Whole Genome Sequencing: Using a shotgun approach, the entire 46 million bases of the P. cubensis genome are sequenced using Illumina next-generation sequencing, resulting in the widest coverage of genes as well as non-coding regions of the genome. Samples sequencing using WGS have the added benefit of being “future proof”, as new genes or genomic regions of interest are found, existing WGS data can be reanalyzed without needing to be sequenced again.