The complete mitochondrial genome of the Sara Longwing Heliconius sara (Insecta: Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae)

Abstract

The complete mitochondrial genome of the Sara Longwing Heliconius sara has been reconstructed from the whole-genome Illumina sequencing data. The mitochondrial genome is 15,372 bp in size with the highly asymmetric overall A + T content of 80.6%. Annotation of mitochondrial genome revealed a total of 37 genes, including 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNAs (tRNAs), 2 ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs) and 1 D-loop region. Most PCGs are initiated with the ATN codons, while COX1 and ND1 start with CGA and TTG, respectively. COX1, COX2, and ND4 harbor the incomplete stop codon T, while all the others are terminated with the TAR codons. The complete mitochondrial genome of H. Sara would contribute to our further understanding of the phylogeny and evolution of the genus Heliconius and related taxa.

• Butterfly
• GenBank
• Illumina sequencing
• MITObim
• mitochondrial genome

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr. A. D. Briscoe and her colleagues for providing the whole-genome sequencing data used in this study.

Declaration of interest

The authors were financially supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China (GK201204004) and Innovation Funds of Graduate Programs, Shaanxi Normal University (CXS20120048) and the “Foundation for Excellent Doctoral Degree Dissertation” of Shaanxi Normal University (X2012YB01), Shaanxi, P. R. China. The authors report no conflicts of interest, and alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.