Sequence characterization and phylogeny analysis of the complete mitochondrial genome of verreaux's sifaka, Propithecus verreauxi (primates: indriidae)

Abstract

The Verreaux's sifaka, Propithecus verreauxi, is a medium-sized lemur that inhabits in tropical dry lowland and montane forest. Here, we reported the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of this species. The mitogenome of P. verreauxi is 17 106 bp in length and composed of 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 2 ribosomal RNA genes, 22 transfer RNA genes and a control region. The structure about gene order and composition is identical to that of the other lemur species and related genera. The overall base composition of the heavy strand in descending order is A (32.84%), T (27.13%), C (26.95%), and G (13.08%). Most of the genes are encoded on the heavy strand except for the NADH dehydrogenase subunit 6 (ND6) and eight tRNA genes. With the exception of COX3, which terminates with an incomplete stop codon (T-), all the other PCGs initiates with a traditional ATN start codon and ends with the typical mitochondrial stop codon (TAG/TAA/AGA). The phylogenetic tree constructed using the complete mitochondrial genome sequences of P. verreauxi together with 15 other closely related species with Neighbor-Joining (NJ) method shows that P. verreauxi is closer to P. coquereli in the phylogenetic relationship.

Keywords:

• Mitochondrial genome
• phylogeny, P. verreauxi
• Verreaux's sifaka

Acknowledgements

The authors greatly thank Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center (Houston, TX) for generating the sequencing data of Verreaux's sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi) used in this work and the anonymous reviewers for proving his/her valuable comments on the manuscript.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper. This work is supported by the Health and Family planning Commission of Shandong Province Science and Technology project 2014-7.