The complete mitochondrial genome of Sika deer Cervus nippon hortulorum (Artiodactyla: Cervidae) and phylogenetic studies

Abstract

Sika deer (Cervus nippon Temminck 1836) are classified in the order Artiodactyla, family Cervidae, subfamily Cervinae. At present, the phylogenetic studies of C. nippon are problematic. In this study, we first determined and described the complete mitochondrial sequence of the wild C. nippon hortulorum. The complete mitogenome sequence is 16 566 bp in length, including 13 protein-coding genes, two rRNA genes, 22 tRNA genes, a putative control region (CR) and a light-strand replication origin (O_L). The overall base composition was 33.4% A, 28.6% T, 24.5% C, 13.5% G, with a 62.0% AT bias. The 13 protein-coding genes encode 3782 amino acids in total. To further validate the new determined sequences and phylogeny of Sika deer, phylogenetic trees involving 15 most closely related species available in GenBank database were constructed. These results are expected to provide useful molecular data for deer species identification and further phylogenetic studies of Artiodactyla.

• Artiodactyla
• mitogenome
• phylogenetic tree
• Sika deer

Declaration of interest

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31401984) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. DL13CA03). The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.