Complete mitochondrial genome of the Five-dot Sergeant <I>Parathyma sulpitia</I> (Nymphalidae: Limenitidinae) and its phylogenetic implications

Abstract

The complete mitochondrial genome of the Parathyma sulpitia (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae, Limenitidinae) was determined. The entire mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) molecule was 15 268 bp in size. Its gene content and organization were the same as those of other lepidopteran species, except for the presence of the 121 bp long intergenic spacer between trnS1(AGN) and trnE. The 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs) started with the typical ATN codon, with the exception of the cox1 gene that used CGA as its initial codon. In addition, all protein-coding genes terminated at the common stop codon TAA, except the nad4 gene which used a single T as its terminating codon. All 22 tRNA genes possessed the typical clover leaf secondary structure except for trnS1(AGN), which had a simple loop with the absence of the DHU stem. Excluding the A+T-rich region, the mtDNA genome of P. sulpitia harbored 11 intergenic spacers, the longest of which was 121 bp long with the highest A+T content (100%), located between trnS1(AGN) and trnE. As in other lepidopteran species, there was an 18-bp poly-T stretch at the 3'-end of the A+T-rich region, and there were a few short microsatellite-like repeat regions without conspicuous macro-repeats in the A+T-rich region. The phylogenetic analyses of the published complete mt genomes from nine Nymphalidae species were conducted using the concatenated sequences of 13 PCGs with maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference methods. The results indicated that Limenitidinae was a sister to the Heliconiinae among the main Nymphalidae lineages in this study, strongly supporting the results of previous molecular data, while contradicting speculations based on morphological characters.