Mitochondrial genome of the bullet tuna Auxis rochei from Indo-West Pacific collection provides novel genetic information about two subspecies

Abstract

Previously morphological studies supported the division of the bullet tuna into the two subspecies, Auxis rochei rochei and A. rochei eudorax. As a cosmopolitan species, A. rochei rochei ranges in the Indo-West Pacific and Atlantic oceans, while A. rochei eudorax inhabits in eastern Pacific region. Here, we used the HiSeq next-generation sequencing technique to determine the mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of A. rochei from Indo-West Pacific collection, and then compared our data with mitogenomic sequences of the Atlantic and eastern Pacific retrieved from NCBI database. Results showed the mitogenome of A. rochei from three geographic collections shared the same genes and gene order, similar to typical teleosts. Also, we examined a low level of nucleotide diversity among these mitogenomic sequences. Interestingly, nucleotide diversity of intra-subspecies (Atlantic versus Indo-West) was higher than that of inter-subspecies (Atlantic versus eastern Pacific, Indo-West versus eastern Pacific).

• Auxis rochei
• mitochondrial genome
• subspecies

Declaration of interest

The authors report that they have no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper. This work was supported by the National High Technology R & D Program 863 of China (2012AA10A414) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant nos. 31370047 and 31001112).