The complete mitochondrial genomes of Xyleutes mineus and Zeuzera multistrigata (Cossidae: Zeuzerinae): genome characterisation and phylogenetic implications

Abstract

Cossoidea is a relatively small superfamily within Lepidoptera that is highly important in agriculture and forestry. To develop mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) data for this significant group, we determined the complete mitogenomes of Xyleutes mineus (Cramer) and Zeuzera multistrigata (Moore) (Lepidoptera: Cossoidea: Cossidae: Zeuzerinae) and compared with previously published mitogenomes in Cossoidea. The circular mitogenome of X. mineus is 15,490 bp long, with an A+T content of 82.1%, and that of Z. multistrigata is 15,320 bp long, with an A+T content of 78.9%. Both mitogenomes contain a standard set of 37 genes and an A+T-rich region with the same gene orientation as in the mitogenomes of most species of Lepidoptera. All tRNA genes have the typical clover-leaf secondary structure, except for trnSAGN, which lacks the dihydrouridine (DHU) arm. The A+T-rich region contains some conserved blocks, including the motif ‘ATAG’ followed by a poly-T stretch as well as a microsatellite-like (AT)n element preceded by the ‘ATTTA’ motif. Further, phylogenetic analysis with 33 Lepidoptera species was conducted in this study. The maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference analyses based on concatenation of the 13 protein coding genes showed identical topology, similar to the result of the morphological analysis.