The complete mitochondrial genome of Sasakia funebris (Leech) (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) and comparison with other Apaturinae insects

Abstract

Sasakia funebris, a member of the lepidopteran family, Nymphalidae (superfamily Papilionoidea) is a rare species and is found only in some areas of South China. In this study, the 15,233 bp long complete mitochondrial genome of S. funebris was determined, and harbors the gene arrangement identical to all other sequenced lepidopteran insects. The nucleotide composition of the genome is highly A+T biased, accounting for 81.2%. All protein-coding genes (PCGs) start with typical ATN codons, except for COI which begins with the CGA codon. All tRNAs have a typical clover-leaf secondary structure, except for tRNASer(AGN), the dihydrouridine (DHU) arm of which forms a simple loop. The S. funebris A+T-rich region of 370 bp contains several features common to the Lepidoptera insects, including the motif ATAGA followed by a 19 bp poly-T stretch, and two tandem repeats consisting of 18 bp repeat units and 14 bp repeat units. The phylogenetic analyses of Apaturinae based on mitogenome sequences showed: (S. funebris+Sasakia charonda)+(Apatura metis+Apatura ilia). This result is consistent with the morphological classification.

Keywords: A+T-rich region; ATP6; ATP8; ATPase subunit 6; ATPase subunit 8; Apaturinae; BI; Bayesian inference; COI–COIII; Cytb; Lepidoptera; Lepidopteran phylogeny; ML; Maximum likelihood; Mitochondrial genome; NADH dehydrogenase subunits 1–6 and ND4L; ND1–6 and ND4L; PCG; PCR; Sasakia funebris; adenine+thymine-rich region; base pair(s); bp; cytochrome B; cytochrome oxidase subunits 1–3; genes encoding for transfer RNA molecules with corresponding amino acids denoted with a three-letter code and anticodon indicated in parentheses (XXX) when necessary; kb; kilobase; large and small subunit of ribosomal RNA genes; lrRNA and srRNA; mitochondrial DNA; mtDNA; polymerase chain reaction; protein-coding gene; tRNA(XXX).