The complete mitochondrial genome of the cat flea, Ctenocephalides felis

Abstract

The cat flea, Ctenocephalides fells, is widely recognized as a global veterinary pest and a vector of pathogenic bacteria. We recently reported on the C. felis nuclear genome, which is characterized by over 38% protein coding gene duplication, extensive tRNA gene family expansion, and remarkable gene copy number variation (CNV) between individual fleas. Herein, we describe the assembly of the C. felis mitochondrial genome, a novel resource for comparative genomics of fleas and other insects. The order and content of mitochondrial genes is highly consistent with four previously sequenced flea mitochondrial genomes, limiting CNV to siphonapteran nuclear genomes.

Keywords:

• Cat flea
• Ctenocephalides felis
• Siphonaptera
• mitochondria
• genome
• PacBio sequencing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data for this study are openly available in GenBank at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/ under accession number MT594468.

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Health (NIH)/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) grants R01AI017828 and R01AI126853 to AFA, R01AI122672 to KRM, and R21AI26108 and R21AI146773 to JJG. TPD and VIV were supported by startup funding provided to TPD by West Virginia University.