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The mitochondrial genome of the butterfly Papilio xuthus (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) and related phylogenetic analyses

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Abstract

The nearly complete mitochondrial genome of the butterfly Papilio xuthus (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) was sequenced for its nucleotide sequence of 13,964 bp. The genome has a typical gene order identical to other lepidopteran species. All tRNAs showed same stable canonical clover-leaf structure as those of other insects, except for tRNASer (AGN), in which the dihydrouracil arm (DHU arm) could not form stable stem–loop structure. Anomalous initiation codons have been observed for the cox1 gene, where the ATTACG hexa-nucleotide was believed to be involved in the initiation signaling. Twelve mitochondrial protein-coding gene sequence data were used to infer the phylogenetic relationships among the insect orders. Even though the number of insect orders represented by complete mitochondrial genomes is still limited, several well-established relationships are evident in the phylogenetic analysis of the complete sequences. Monophyly of the Homometabola was not supported in this paper. Phylogenetic analyses of the available species of Bombycoidea, Pyraloidea, Papilionoidea and Tortricidea bolstered the current morphology-based hypothesis that Bombycoidea, Pyraloidea and Papilionoidea are monophyletic (Obtectomera). Bombycoidea (Bombyx mandarina and Antheraea pernyi) and Papilionoidea (P. xuthus and Coreana raphaelis) formed a sister group.

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Abbreviations

atp6 and atp8:

ATPase subunits 6 and 8

bp:

Base pair(s)

cox13:

Cytochrome coxidase subunits I–III

cob :

Cytochrome b gene

nad16 and 4L:

NADH dehydrogenase subunits 1-6 and 4L genes

rRNA:

Ribosomal RNA

tRNA:

Transfer RNA

PCG:

Protein coding gene

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Dr. Jie Yan and Mr. Hao Shi (College of Life Sciences, Nanjing Normal University) for technical assistance, and to David Lees (Department of Entomology, The Natural History Museum, London) for improving this manuscript. Finally we thank Dr. Welch D. M. and one anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on previous of this manuscript. This work was supported by a grant from the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (No. 30160015).

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Feng, X., Liu, DF., Wang, NX. et al. The mitochondrial genome of the butterfly Papilio xuthus (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) and related phylogenetic analyses. Mol Biol Rep 37, 3877–3888 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-010-0044-z

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