The complete mitochondrial genome of the Cape honey bee, Apis mellifera capensis Esch. (Insecta: hymenoptera: apidae)

Amin Eimanifar; Rebecca T Kimball; Edward L Braun; James D Ellis

doi:10.1080/23802359.2016.1241682

The complete mitochondrial genome of the Cape honey bee, Apis mellifera capensis Esch. (Insecta: hymenoptera: apidae)

Mitochondrial DNA B Resour. 2016 Nov 12;1(1):817-819. doi: 10.1080/23802359.2016.1241682.

Authors

Amin Eimanifar¹, Rebecca T Kimball², Edward L Braun², James D Ellis¹

Affiliations

¹ Honey Bee Research and Extension Laboratory, Department of Entomology and Nematology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
² Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.

Abstract

We characterized the complete mitogenome sequence of the Cape honey bee, Apis mellifera capensis, from South Africa. The circle genome is 16,470 bp in length, with the base composition of 43.2% A, 9.6% C, 5.6% G, and 41.5% T. The assembled mitogenome has 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNAs, two ribosomal RNA genes, and one control region. All protein-coding genes are initiated by ATT, ATC, ATG or ATA codons and are terminated by the typical stop codon TAA. The heavy strand encodes four protein-coding genes, eight tRNAs, and two rRNAs. The light strand encodes nine protein-coding genes and 14 tRNAs. The complete mitogenome sequence of A.m. capensis is identical to the gene arrangement found in other A. mellifera mitogenomes and it provides essential and important DNA molecular data for further phylogenetic and evolutionary analysis of members of the genus Apis.

Keywords: Apis mellifera capensis; Cape honey bee; South Africa; mitogenome; next-generation sequencing; social parasite.