Abstract
The mitochondrial genome sequence of Levant Region honeybee, Apis mellifera syriaca, is analyzed and presented for the public for the first time. The genome of this honeybee is 15,428 bp in its length, containing 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes and 2 ribosomal RNA genes. The overall base composition is A (42.88%), C (9.97%), G (5.85%), and T (41.3%), the percentage of A and T being higher than that of G and C. Percentage of non-ATGC characters is 0.007. All the genes are encoded on H-strand, except for four subunit genes (ND1, ND4, ND4L, and ND5), two rRNA genes and eight tRNA genes. The publication of the mitochondrial genome sequence will play a vital role in the conservation genetic projects of A. mellifera, in general, and Apis mellifera syriaca, in particular; moreover, it will be useful for further phylogenetic analysis.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Her Royal Highness Princess Basma Bint Ali, the founder of the Royal Botanic Garden of Jordan for providing continuance support to our local honeybees conservation project, the Bee Research Department Research and the Genotypic Technology teams and the anonymous reviewers for providing valuable comments on the manuscript.
Declaration of interest
The author reports no conflicts of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of the paper. This work was funded by USAID grants numbers: TA-MOU-09-M29-075 and TA-MOU-11-M32-035.