The complete mitochondrial genome of praying mantises Phyllothelys breve (Mantodea: Mantidae) and phylogenetic analysis

Abstract

In this study, we determined the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of praying mantises Phyllothelys breve (Wang, 1993) (GenBank accession no. MT024239) using next-generation sequencing method. The mitogenome is 15,896 bp in length, consisting of 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), two ribosomal RNA genes (rRNAs), 22 transfer RNA genes (tRNAs), and one non-coding control region. The overall nucleotide composition was 40.2% A, 35.5% T, 15.2% C, and 9.1% G, with 75.7% AT, respectively. The gene arrangement is consistent with the typical insect mitochondrial genome. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that P. breve clustered into a clade with congeneric species with high bootstrap support.

Keywords:

• Insecta
• molecular
• phylogeny
• mitochondrial DNA
• genetic diversity

Mantodea commonly known as predatory insects with more than 2500 extant species (Patel and Singh 2016). Species of genus Phyllothelys Wood-Mason, with a process on the vertex, mainly distributed in southern China and Southeast Asia (Ehrmann and Roy 2009). Here, we determined the complete mitochondrial genome of Phyllothelys breve (Wang, 1993). The sampled specimen was collected from Jinghong, Yunnan, China (22°02′N, 100°55′E) in November 2018 and identified to species by morphology. The specimen was stored in the Entomological specimen room of Shangluo University (voucher no. Ma-2018101). The complete mitochondrial DNA sequence was determined using Illumina HiSeq 2500 Sequencing System (Illumina, San Diego, CA, USA). In total, 5.5 G raw reads were obtained, quality-trimmed, and assembled using MITObim version 1.7 (https://github.com/chrishah/MITObim) (Hahn et al. 2013).

The complete mitochondrial genome of P. breve was 15,896 bp in total length and deposited in GenBank database with an accession number MT024239. The overall base composition was 40.2% A, 35.5% T, 15.2% C, and 9.1% G, with an A + T ratio of 75.7%. The full mitochondrial genome contains 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNAs (tRNAs), two ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs), and a putative control region (CR). The gene arrangement of P. breve is similar to that observed in family Mantidae praying mantises (Ye et al. 2016; Zhang and Ye 2017). All PCGs of P. breve have the conventional start codon for invertebrate mitochondrial PCGs (ATN), and nd4 and nd5 begin with ATA. Most of the PCGs terminate with the stop codon TAA, whereas cox2, nd4, and nd5 end with the incomplete codon T. Twenty-five genes were encoded on the major strand (J-strand), whereas the others were encoded on the minor strand (N-strand). Nine PCGs are encoded on the majority strand (J-strand) and four (nd5, nd4, nd4L, and nd1) on the minority strand (N-strand). Two rRNA genes (rrnL and rrnS) locate at trnL1/trnV and trnV/control regions, respectively, and both rRNA genes are encoded on the N-strand. The lengths of the two rRNA genes (rrnL and rrnS) in P. breve are about 1314 and 753 bp, with the A + T contents of 78.9% and 76.4%, respectively. The length of control region is 948 bp, with the AT content of this region is up to 77.4%.

To validate the phylogenetic position of P. breve, 13 mitochondrial protein-coding genes sequences were extracted from the complete mitochondrial DNA sequences of 12 closely related taxa of Mantodea. The phylogenetic tree was constructed using the maximum-likelihood method through IQtree 1.6.8 (Nguyen et al. 2015). Results showed that the family Mantidae is not monophyletic and P. breve clustered into a clade with congeneric species (Figure 1), which was consistent with the previous studies (Legendre et al. 2015; Le-Ping et al. 2018; Shi et al. 2019). As a conclusion, we obtained and described the complete mitochondrial genome of P. breve, which constitute a valuable and useful resource for population genetic study and identification efforts on this species.

Figure 1. Phylogenetic relationships based on the 13 mitochondrial protein-coding genes sequences inferred from IQtree. Numbers on branches are bootstrap values.

Disclosure statement

All authors have read and approved the final manuscript. No conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This scientific research program funded by Shaanxi Provincial Education Department (Program No. 19JK0257), and also supported by the Scientific Innovation Team of Shangluo (Program No. SK2018-03-03).