Abstract
The emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) is the largest living species of penguin. Herein, we first reported the complete mitochondrial genome of emperor penguin. The mitochondrial genome is a circular molecule of 17 301 bp in length, consisting of 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, two rRNA, and one control region. To verify the accuracy and the utility of new determined mitogenome sequences, we constructed the species phylogenetic tree of emperor penguin together with 10 other closely species. This is the second complete mitochondrial genome of penguin, and this is going to be an important data to study mitochondrial evolution of birds.
Acknowledgements
The authors would thank BGI for generating the sequencing data of the Emperor Penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) used in this work.
Declaration of interest
The authors report that they have no conflict of interest exists. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.