The Coding Mitogenome of the Freshwater Crayfish Pontastacus leptodactylus (Decapoda:Astacidea:Astacidae) from Lake Vegoritida, Greece and Its Taxonomic Classification

Maria V Alvanou; Apostolos P Apostolidis; Athanasios Lattos; Basile Michaelidis; Ioannis A Giantsis

doi:10.3390/genes14020494

The Coding Mitogenome of the Freshwater Crayfish Pontastacus leptodactylus (Decapoda:Astacidea:Astacidae) from Lake Vegoritida, Greece and Its Taxonomic Classification

Genes (Basel). 2023 Feb 15;14(2):494. doi: 10.3390/genes14020494.

Authors

Maria V Alvanou¹, Apostolos P Apostolidis², Athanasios Lattos³, Basile Michaelidis³, Ioannis A Giantsis¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Western Macedonia, 53100 Florina, Greece.
² Laboratory of Ichthyology & Fisheries, Department of Animal Production, Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Environment, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece.
³ Laboratory of Animal Physiology, Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece.

Abstract

Pontastacus leptodactylus (Eschscholtz, 1823) (Decapoda:Astacidea:Astacidae) constitutes an ecologically and economically highly important species. In the present study, the mitochondrial genome of the freshwater crayfish P. leptodactylus from Greece is analyzed for the first time, using 15 newly designed primer pairs based on available sequences of closely related species. The analyzed coding part of the mitochondrial genome of P. leptodactylus consists of 15,050 base pairs including 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 2 ribosomal RNA gene (rRNAs), and 22 transfer RNA genes (tRNAs). These newly designed primers may be particularly useful in future studies for analyzing different mitochondrial DNA segments. Based on the entire mitochondrial genome sequence, compared to other haplotypes from related species belonging in the same family (Astacidae) available in the GenBank database, a phylogenetic tree was constructed depicting the phylogenetic relationships of P. leptodactylus. Based on the results, the genetic distance between Astacus astacus and P. leptodactylus is smaller than the genetic distance between Austropotamobius pallipes and Austropotamobius torrentium, despite the fact that the latter two are classified within the same genus, questioning the phylogenetic position of A. astacus as a different genus than P. leptodactylus. In addition, the sample from Greece seems genetically distant compared with a conspecific haplotype available in the GenBank database, possibly implying a genetic distinction of P. leptodactylus from Greece.

Keywords: Pontastacus leptodactylus; Vegoritida; freshwater crayfish; mitochondrial genome; phylogeny.

Publication types

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

MeSH terms

Animals
Astacoidea / genetics
Decapoda* / genetics
Genome, Mitochondrial*
Greece
Lakes
Phylogeny

Grants and funding

This research project was supported by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (H.F.R.I.) under the “2nd Call for H.F.R.I. Research Projects to support Faculty Members & Researchers” (Project Number: 3245).