The complete mitochondrial genome of Dendrophyllia minuscula (Cnidaria: Scleractinia) from the NEOM region of the Northern Red Sea

Tullia I Terraneo; Roberto Arrigoni; Fabio Marchese; Giovanni Chimienti; Ameer Abdulla Eweida; Mattie Rodrigue; Francesca Benzoni

doi:10.1080/23802359.2022.2074803

The complete mitochondrial genome of Dendrophyllia minuscula (Cnidaria: Scleractinia) from the NEOM region of the Northern Red Sea

Mitochondrial DNA B Resour. 2022 May 12;7(5):848-850. doi: 10.1080/23802359.2022.2074803. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Tullia I Terraneo¹, Roberto Arrigoni², Fabio Marchese¹, Giovanni Chimienti^{3

4}, Ameer Abdulla Eweida^{5

6}, Mattie Rodrigue⁷, Francesca Benzoni¹

Affiliations

¹ Red Sea Research Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, (KAUST), Thuwal, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
² Department of Biology and Evolution of Marine Organisms (BEOM), Genoa Marine Centre (GMC), Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn-National Institute of Marine Biology, Ecology and Biotechnology, Villa del Principe, Genoa, Italy.
³ Department of Biology, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy.
⁴ CoNISMa, Rome, Italy.
⁵ Marine Conservation Division, Nature Conservation Authority, Neom, Saudi Arabia.
⁶ Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.
⁷ OceanX, New York, NY, USA.

Abstract

The scleractinian coral family Dendrophylliidae is a major component of shallow and deep-water coral ecosystems worldwide, but our knowledge on the evolutionary history of the family remains scarce. Here, we used ezRAD coupled with Illumina sequencing technology and reconstructed the complete mitochondrial genome of Dendrophyllia minuscula (GenBank accession number OL634845), from mesophotic depths in the Red Sea NEOM area. The mitochondrial genome of D. minuscula consisted of 19,054 bp, organized in 13 protein-coding genes, 2 rRNA genes, and 2 tRNA genes, in agreement with the Scleractinia typical mitogenome organization. This complete mitochondrial genome contributes toward a better knowledge of mesophotic and deep-water coral diversity and evolutionary history.

Keywords: Dendrophylliidae; NGS; RAD sequencing; mesophotic coral ecosystems; mitogenome.

Grants and funding

The research expedition was founded by NEOM. The genomic analysis was supported by funding KAUST [award FCC/1/1973-49-01 and baseline research funds to FB]. GC was supported by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research [PON 2014–2020, Grant AIM 1807508-1, Linea 1].