Characteristics of the mitochondrial genome of Qinling zokor (Eospalax rufescens)

Pengfei Song; Hongmei Gao; Feng Jiang; Tongzuo Zhang; Zhenyuan Cai

doi:10.1080/23802359.2020.1768919

Characteristics of the mitochondrial genome of Qinling zokor (Eospalax rufescens)

Mitochondrial DNA B Resour. 2020 May 27;5(3):2161-2162. doi: 10.1080/23802359.2020.1768919. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Pengfei Song^{1

2

3}, Hongmei Gao^{1

2

3}, Feng Jiang^{1

2

3}, Tongzuo Zhang^{1

2}, Zhenyuan Cai^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Adaptation and Evolution of Plateau Biota, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining, China.
² Qinghai Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Ecological Genomics, Xining, China.
³ College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.

Abstract

We report the complete mitochondrial genome for the Eospalax rufescens, a typical subterranean rodent species and endemic in China. The resulting E. rufescens mitogenome is 16,355 bases in size, containing 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 2 ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes, 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, and 1 noncoding control region (D-loop). The base compositions present highly biased toward A + T nucleotides. Moreover, twelve of all 13 PCGs initiated with ATN start codon, whereas ND1 began with GTG start codon. Stop codons in 13 PCGs were all typical types except incomplete stop codon T for ND4. We further provide a Maximum Likelihood phylogenetic tree showing relationships among E. rufescens and other common subterranean rodents in family Spalacidae.

Keywords: Eospalax rufescens; Qinling zokor; mitochondrial genome; next generation sequencing.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Applied Basic Research Program of Qinghai Science 2019-ZJ-7069.