Non-invasive sampling and mitochondrial genome analysis in Python reticulatus

Abstract

To explore the possibility of non-invasive sampling in snake research, feces and fresh snake sloughs for genome extraction from Python reticulatus (reticulated python) were used. Furthermore, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) was taken, and the full sequence of mitochondrial genome was analyzed with mitochondrial genome dates in GenBank. Results showed that (1) the quality of DNA extracted from snake sloughs was better than that of feces, and the concentration of DNA extracted by liquid nitrogen treatment was higher. (2) The complete sequence of the mitochondrial genome was obtained for a length of 17 641 bp with gene arrangement and structure being consistent with the Pythonidae species. However, there were differences in the start codons and stop codons of some genes. (3) Inferred from the phylogenetic tree analysis, the evolutionary relationship was speculated as (Pythonidae, Xenopeltidae and Boidae). (4) Analysis of the hotspots in species evolution showed that similarity was very high in the two control regions, and they were clustered by species in the phylogenetic tree. Thus, it was presumed the structures of the two control regions originated from the same ancestor, and this intraspecific evolution was due to co-evolution.