The complete mitochondrial genomes of three bristletails (Insecta: Archaeognatha): the paraphyly of Machilidae and insights into archaeognathan phylogeny

Y Ma; K He; P Yu; D Yu; X Cheng; J Zhang

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0117669

The complete mitochondrial genomes of three bristletails (Insecta: Archaeognatha): the paraphyly of Machilidae and insights into archaeognathan phylogeny

PLoS One. 2015 Jan 30;10(1):e0117669. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0117669. eCollection 2015.

Authors

Y Ma¹, K He², P Yu¹, D Yu³, X Cheng¹, J Zhang¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Ecology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, China; College of Chemistry and Life Science, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, China.
² College of Chemistry and Life Science, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, China.
³ Institute of Ecology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, China.

Abstract

The order Archaeognatha was an ancient group of Hexapoda and was considered as the most primitive of living insects. Two extant families (Meinertellidae and Machilidae) consisted of approximately 500 species. This study determined 3 complete mitochondrial genomes and 2 nearly complete mitochondrial genome sequences of the bristletail. The size of the 5 mitochondrial genome sequences of bristletail were relatively modest, containing 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 2 ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes, 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes and one control region. The gene orders were identical to that of Drosophila yakuba and most bristletail species suggesting a conserved genome evolution within the Archaeognatha. In order to estimate archaeognathan evolutionary relationships, phylogenetic analyses were conducted using concatenated nucleotide sequences of 13 protein-coding genes, with four different computational algorithms (NJ, MP, ML and BI). Based on the results, the monophyly of the family Machilidae was challenged by both datasets (W12 and G12 datasets). The relationships among archaeognathan subfamilies seemed to be tangled and the subfamily Machilinae was also believed to be a paraphyletic group in our study.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Base Composition
Genes, Mitochondrial
Genome, Mitochondrial*
Insecta / classification*
Insecta / genetics*
Molecular Sequence Annotation
Open Reading Frames
Phylogeny
RNA, Ribosomal / chemistry
RNA, Ribosomal / genetics
RNA, Transfer / chemistry
RNA, Transfer / genetics
Sequence Analysis, DNA

Substances

RNA, Ribosomal
RNA, Transfer

Grants and funding

Funding for this research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 31370042 and 31000966) to JYZ in collecting samples, sequencing the mt genome of all samples. The funders have no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.