The complete mitochondrial genome of eastern lowland gorilla, Gorilla beringei graueri, and comparative mitochondrial genomics of Gorilla species

Abstract

In this study, we determined the complete mitochondrial (mt) genome of eastern lowland gorilla, Gorilla beringei graueri for the first time. The total genome was 16,416 bp in length. It contained a total of 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes and 1 control region (D-loop region). The base composition was A (30.88%), G (13.10%), C (30.89%) and T (25.13%), indicating that the percentage of A+T (56.01%) was higher than G+C (43.99%). Comparisons with the other publicly available Gorilla mitogenome showed the conservation of gene order and base compositions but a bunch of nucleotide diversity. This complete mitochondrial genome sequence will provide valuable genetic information for further studies on conservation genetics of eastern lowland gorilla.

• Eastern lowland gorilla
• G. beringei graueri
• mitochondrial genome

Acknowledgements

We would thank anonymous reviewers for providing valuable comments on the manuscript.

Declaration of interest

This work was supported by Key Project of Natural Science Foundation of Yunnan Province (2010CC011), Top Talents Program of Yunnan Province (20080A009), Hundreds Oversea Talents Program of Yunnan Province and Hundreds Talents Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) (to L. Z. GAO).

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.