Complete mitochondrial genome sequence of the Chinese scrub vole (Neodon irene)

Abstract

The Chinese scrub vole (Neodon irene) belongs to the subfamily Arvicolinae, which is restricted to mountain areas at high altitudes (2800–4000). In this study, we sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome of N. irene. It was determined to be 16,367 bases. The nucleotide sequence data of 12 heavy-strand protein-coding genes of N. irene and other 22 rodents were used for phylogenetic analysis. Bayesian inference (BI) and maximum likelihood (ML) were used. Both the BI and ML trees demonstrated that Microtus rossiaemeridionalis and Microtus kikuchii did not cluster together with each other. On the contrary, M. rossiaemeridionalis showed close relationship with N. irene. In the present study, only one sequence from Neodon and two sequences from Microtus were included in the phylogenetic analysis which should contribute to the unusual relationship. Therefore, in order to better understand the phylogenetic relationship within Rodentia, more rodents' complete mitochondrial genomes are required.

Keywords::

• Chinese scrub vole
• complete mitochondrial genome
• phylogenetic relationship

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Mr. Rui Liao at Sichuan Academy of Forestry for assistance in collecting specimens in the field.

Declaration of interest: This research was funded by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Project: 2007 CB109106 and 2007 CB411605). The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.