Characterization of the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of Smerinthus caecus (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae)

Yin-Feng Meng; Chao-Fan Chen; Yi-Xin Huang; Xu Wang; Bo Zhang

doi:10.1080/23802359.2022.2163597

Characterization of the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of Smerinthus caecus (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae)

Mitochondrial DNA B Resour. 2023 Jan 15;8(1):130-132. doi: 10.1080/23802359.2022.2163597. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Yin-Feng Meng¹, Chao-Fan Chen², Yi-Xin Huang³, Xu Wang⁴, Bo Zhang¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Biology Pharmacy and Food Engineering, Shangluo University, Shangluo, China.
² Shanxi Forestry and Grassland Bureau, Taiyuan, China.
³ School of Ecology and Environment, Collaborative Innovation Center of Recovery and Reconstruction of Degraded Ecosystem in Wanjiang Basin Co-founded by Anhui Province and Ministry of Education, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu, China.
⁴ College of Life Sciences, Anhui Provincial Key Laboratory of the Conservation and Exploitation of Biological Resources, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu, China.

Abstract

In this study, we sequenced and analyzed the complete mitogenome of Smerinthus caecus Ménétriés, 1857. The mitogenome of S. caecus is a circular structure, and 15,363 bp long in size and encodes 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), two ribosomal RNA genes (rRNAs), 22 transfer RNA genes (tRNAs), and a control region (CR). An extremely high AT bias of 79.2% was found in the nucleotide composition of mitogenome. Most of the PCGs used ATN as the start codon and TAA or TAG as the stop codon, which is similar to most other insect mitogenomes, except cox1, which starts with CGA. The phylogeny of Smerinthinae was reconstructed using a maximum-likelihood method, a total of 33 mitogenomes were sampled for phylogenetic analyses. The subfamily Langiinae was selected as outgroup. The results confirmed the position of S. caecus in the Smerinthinae, in which Smerinthus caecus was placed as the sister taxon to Smerinthus planus, then to Laothoe amurensis.

Keywords: Bombycoidea; Dabie Mountain; mitochondrial genome; phylogenetic relationship.

Grants and funding

This project was supported by the Specialized Research Fund of Education Department of Shaanxi Province [21JK0618], Project of Science and Technology Special of Shangluo [2021-Z-0048], the Scientific Research Foundation of Shangluo University [20SKY009], the Natural Science Fund of Anhui Province [1908085QC93], and the Natural Science Foundation of Universities of Anhui Province [KJ2020A0094].