Complete mitochondrial genomes of Korean lamprey (Lethenteron morii) and American brook lamprey (L. appendix)

Abstract

The complete mitogenomes of two lampreys with complex taxonomic histories, the Korean lamprey (Lethenteron morii) and the American brook lamprey (L. appendix) were determined. Three-nt length difference between two genomes occurred on tRNA-Ser₂ and control region 2. Except for 3 indel sites, there are 58 variable sites between two genomes which occurred on 11 of the 13 protein-coding genes (aside from COX3 and ND3) and 2 of rRNAs, tRNAs, control regions and intergenic regions. Among these sites, 15 sites are non-synonymous substitution sites occurred on 8 protein-coding genes including COX1-COX2, ND1-ND2, ND4-ND6 and ATPase6. Control region 1 contains 4 consecutive 39-nt repetitive strings and a 26-nt repetitive string in control region 2 is repeated 3.8 times in both lampreys. The observed level of similarity between nucleotide sequences (99.62%) implies the Korean lamprey and American brook lamprey are very close relatives and should be assigned into the same taxonomic genus.

• American brook lamprey
• control region
• korean lamprey
• mitogenome
• repeat sequence

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests. This work was supported by a grant of the Excellent Young Teachers Program of Shanghai (to JR), Shanghai Outstanding Undergraduate Scholarship for Interdisciplinary Training (to JP) and First Class Discipline Construction (to WL). TB and WL also received support from the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.