The complete mitochondrial genome of a stonefly species, Peltoperlopsis cebuano (Plecoptera: Peltoperlidae)

Abstract

The complete mitochondrial genome of P. cebuano is 15,790 bp in size and consists of 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), the large and small ribosomal RNA genes, 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, and a control region. The nucleotide composition is significantly AT biased with an A + T content of 69.4%. Ten PCGs are initiated by ATN codons, except ND1, ND2, and ND5 start with TTG, GTG, and GTG. Twelve PCGs use the typical stop codon TAA/TAG, whereas the remaining COII gene terminated with a single T. Our phylogenetic result showed that P. cebuano was closely related to Cryptoperla stilifera and the relationship among three families was Pteronarcyidae + (Peltoperlidae + Styloperlidae). This result supports the traditional morphology-based classification and our previously phylogenetic result.

Keywords:

• Peltoperlopsis cebuano
• mitochondrial genome
• phylogenetics

Peltoperlidae is one of the smallest families of Plecoptera with approximately 50 species divided between the nearctic, palearctic, and oriental regions (DeWalt et al. 2019). Currently, the position of Pteronarcyidae, Styloperlidae, and Peltoperlidae in Pteronarcyoidea has been resolved based on morphology (Zwick 2000), but several different suggestions were proposed based on molecular data (Terry and Whiting 2003; Chen & Du 2017; Chen et al. 2018), and the relationship within the Pteronarcyoidea still lacks precise phylogeny. In this study, the specimen of P. cebuano was collected from Sabah, Malasia by Jianyun Wang in 2015. Samples and voucher specimens were deposited in the insect specimen room of Henan Institute of Science and Technology, China. Total genomic DNA from the thorax muscle was extracted using QIAamp DNA Mini Kit (QIAGEN, Hilden, Germany). Sequence reads were assembled into contigs with BioEdit version 7.0.5.3 (Hall 1999). Annotation of the complete mitochondrial genome was performed as described in previous studies (Li et al. 2017; Wang et al. 2017, 2018; Liu et al. 2018). In the present study, we sequenced and determined the complete mitogenome of P. cebuano by high-throughput sequencing method for further research (GenBank accession No. MK387068).

The mitogenome of P. cebuano is a circular molecule consisting of 15,790 nucleotides, which contains a typical set of 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), two ribosomal RNA genes (rRNAs), 22 transfer RNA genes (tRNAs), and a control region. Like other peltoperlid species, the nucleotide composition of P. cebuano was biased towards A/T nucleotides (A, T, C, and G was 36.4%, 33.0%, 19.7%, and 10.9%). The AT-skew and GC-skew of this genome were 0.049 and −0.288, respectively. Moreover, the A + T content of PCGs, tRNAs, rRNAs, and control region were 67.8%, 70.4%, 72.0%, and 81.0%, respectively. All tRNAs had the canonical cloverleaf secondary structures, except for tRNA^Ser(AGN) which lacked the dihydrouridine arm. Among the 13 PCGs, 10 PCGs were initiated by ATN codons, whereas the ND1, ND2, and ND5 genes used TTG, GTG, and GTG as start codons, respectively. The typical termination codon (TAA or TAG) occurred in 12 PCGs, and the COII gene was terminated with a single T. The small rRNA was 792 bp in length with A + T content of 68.7%, and the large rRNA was 1351 bp in length with A + T content of 73.8%.

The concatenated nucleotide sequences of 13 PCGs and 2 rRNAs from eight stonefly species, representing three families of Pteronarcyoidea, were used in phylogenetic analysis. Two species (Mesocapnia arizonensis and Mesocapnia daxingana) were used as outgroups. The phylogenetic trees were constructed from the maximum likelihood (ML) and Bayesian (BI) inferences. The two methods exhibited the same tree topologies (Figure 1). Our result showed that P. cebuano was closely related to C. stilifera, and the relationship among three families within Pteronarcyoidea was Pteronarcyidae +  (Peltoperlidae + Styloperlidae). The result was in congruence with the traditional morphology-based classification (Zwick 2000) and our previously phylogenetic result (Wang et al. 2017).

Figure 1. Phylogenetic trees based on the concatenated nucleotide sequences of 13 PCGs and 2 rRNAs by Bayesian inference (BI) and maximum likelihood (ML) methods.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31801999) and the initial Project of Henan Institute of Science and Technology (No. 2015026).