Structural characteristics of the melon mitochondria genome

Abstract

Mitochondrial genome can provide important genetic information of melon. We reported that the mitochondrial genome sequence of melon in a previous study, the structural characteristics of the melon mitochondrial genome were further analyzed in this study. The mitochondrial genome of melon is comprised of three circular DNA molecules, with a total length of about 2.9 Mb, contains 4,861 pairs of homologous repeats, 439 pairs of inverted repeats, 653 tandem repeats and 218 SSR sequences. The coding genes accounted for 1.54% and non-coding gene sequences accounted for 98.46% of melon mitochondrial genome. The total repetitive sequence of mitochondrial genome of melon was the highest among <italic>Cucumis melo</italic>, <italic>Cucumis sativus</italic>, <italic>Cucurbita pepo</italic> and <italic>Citrullus lanatus</italic>. The large number of repeated sequences and nuclear genome sequences were the main reason for the increasing size and variation of melon mitochondrial genome. Melon mitochondrial genome has the highest GC content and tRNA quantity. These regions were the main source of mitochondrial genome differences among all species here analyzed.