A complete mitogenome of the Przewalski’s Wonder Gecko (Teratoscincus przewalskii) from the Junggar Basin in Northwest China with its phylogenetic implications

Abstract

A complete mitogenome of the Przewalski’s Wonder Gecko (Teratoscincus przewalskii) from the Junggar Basin in Northwest China was determined by using polymerase chain reaction and directly sequenced with the primer walking method. The total length was 17,184 bp, containing 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNA genes (tRNAs), two ribosomal RNA genes (rRNAs) and a control region (CR). The order and structure of the genes were identical to those of congeners. The 13 PCGs contain four start codons (ATG, GTG, ATA, and ATC), three complete stop codons (TAA, TAG, and AGG), and two incomplete stop codons (T–, TA-). The concatenated PCGs were used to perform Bayesian phylogenetic analyses together with mitogenome data of the family Sphaerodactylidae and related representative taxa available in GenBank. The resulting tree recovered the monophyly of Sphaerodactylidae, and confirmed the sister relationship between T. przewalskii and T. roborowskii with strong support. The newly determined mitogenome will provide fundamental data for understanding the population genetic structure of T. pzrewalskii in particular, and the mitochondrial DNA evolution in Sphaerodactylidae in general.