Full Length Research Paper

Complete nucleotide sequence and organization of the mitogenome of endangered Eumenis autonoe (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae)

Min Jee Kim¹, Xinlong Wan¹, Ki-Gyoung Kim², Jae Sam Hwang³ and Iksoo Kim¹*

¹College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Chonnam National University, Gwangju 500-757, Republic of Korea.

²Biological Resources Research Department, National Institute of Biological Resources, Incheon, 404-708, Republic of Korea.

³National Academy of Agricultural Science RDA, Suwon 441-707, Republic of Korea.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: ikkim81@chonnam.ac.kr.

Accepted 26 November, 2009

   Abstract

Eumenis autonoe, a member of the lepidopteran family, Nymphalidae (superfamily Papilionoidea) is an endangered species and is found only on one isolated remote island Jeju in South Korea, on Halla Mt, at altitudes higher than 1,400 m. In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of E. autonoe was reported. The 15,489-bp long E. autonoe genome evidenced the typical gene content found in animal mitogenomes, and harbors the gene arrangement identical to all other sequenced lepidopteran insects, which differs from the most common type found in insects, due to the movement of tRNA^Met to a position 5’-upstream of tRNA^Ile. As has been observed in many other lepidopteran insects, no typical ATN codon for the COI gene is available. Thus, we also designated the CGA (arginine) found at the beginning of the COI gene as a lepidopteran COI starter, in accordance with previous suggestions. The 678 bp long A + T-rich region, which is second longest in sequenced lepidopteran insects, harbored 10 identical 27 bp long tandem repeats plus one 13 - bp long incomplete final repeat. Such a repeat sequence has been, thus far, only rarely detected in lepidopteran mitogenomes. The E. autonoe A + T-rich region harbored a poly-T stretch of 19 bp and a conserved ATAGA motif located at the end of the region, which have been suggested to function as structural signals for minor-strand mtDNA replication. Phylogenetic reconstruction using the concatenated 13 amino acid and nucleotide sequences of the protein-coding genes (PCGs) consistently supported a close relationship between Bombycoidea and Geometroidea among six available lepidopteran superfamilies (Tortricoidea, Pyraloidea, Papilionoidea, Bombycoidea, Geometroidea and Noctuoidea). Among the true butterflies (Pieridae, Nymphalidae, Lycaenidae and Papilionidae), a closer relationship between Lycaenidae and Pieridae, excluding Nymphalidae was consistently concluded to exist, although this result deviated from the traditional view.

Key words: Mitochondrial DNA, complete mitogenome, Eumenis autonoe, the A + T-rich region, papilionoidea, macrolepidoptera, lepidopteran phylogeny.