Abstract
The Chinese bamboo rat Rhizomys sinensis belongs to family Spalacidae, and is distributed in China, Myanmar, and Vietnam. In this study, the entire mitochondrial genome of R. sinensis was firstly determined. The genome is 16,564 bases in length, containing 13 protein coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes and a putative control region. The composition and arrangement of its genes are identical to most other mammals. The whole base composition of the mitogenome is A 31.9%, G 12.0%, T 31.2% and C 24.9%, with an A+T rich pattern. The species divergence between R. sinensis and R. pruinosus is 0.113, in accordance with a “10× rule”, as the intraspecific barcode variation averaged 1%. The mitogenome data of R. sumatrensis is required to better understand the phylogenetic relationships within Rhizomys.
Acknowledgements
We thank Associate Prof. Gonghua Lin at Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences for providing the mitogenome information of Rhizomys pruinosus.
Declaration of interest
The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper. This research was funded by the Doctoral Startup Project of Jiangxi Academy of Forestry (No. 2013521601). Additional funding was provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31301896), the Scientific Research Foundation for High-level Talents of Pingdingshan University (No. 2012006).