Characterization of the complete mitochondrial genome of the Australian Heliothine moth, Australothis rubrescens (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

Abstract

Australothis rubrescens is basal to the Helicoverpa lineage containing pests such as Helicoverpa armigera, H. assulta and H. gelotopoeon. An illumina library of DNA from A. rubrescens was constructed and shallow sequencing and assembly of the DNA was conducted. The complete mitochondrial genome was identified using similarity to the H. armigera mitochondrial genome. The mitochondrial genome of A. rubrescens is 15,382 bp in length. It contains 37 genes which are shared with the vast majority of animals: 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 2 ribosomal RNAs, 22 transfer RNAs and a non-coding AT-rich region (Table 1). As found in other Lepidopterans, the arrangement of all tRNAs of the A. rubrescens is identical to most insects. The complete mitochondrial genome of A. rubrescens will be an important tool in understanding the evolutionary history of the Heliothine moths.

Mitochondrial DNA genomes of five majorHelicoverpapest species from the Old and New Worlds (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

“…We identified all 13 PCG's, two rRNA genes, and 22 tRNA genes for all assembled mitogenomes. Perfect synteny was observed between mitogenomes of H. gelotopoeon , both subspecies of H. assulta, and previously published Helicoverpa species mitogenomes (i.e., Perera et al, ; Walsh, ; Yin et al, ). Intraspecific nucleotide sequence identities were generally low ranging between 93.03% (between H. punctigera and ) and 94.83% (between H. armigera and H. assulta ), while between the two most recently diverged species H. armigera and H. zea this ranged between 96.90% and 97.40% (average = 97.24%).…”

“…Regardless of the shortcomings of mitochondrial genes in assisting with species confirmation, it is nevertheless desirable to obtain well‐characterized mtDNA genes to bolster biosecurity and pest management practices. The importance of rechecking the assembled mtDNA against public DNA databases (e.g., NCBI Genbank, BoLD) is often not emphasized and has on occasion, led to the misidentification of species and mitogenomes (Tay, Elfekih, Court, Gordon, & Barro, ; Walsh, ). While providing the much needed mitogenome resources for the Helicoverpa pest species across the Old and New Worlds, our study is not aimed at criticizing mistakes and oversights, but is rather, a cautionary reminder of the need to check sequence data against that readily available public DNA databases.…”

“…DNA was purified using the Blood and Tissue DNA extraction kit (Qiagen), prior to quantification using Qubit (Life Technologies). Sequencing libraries were constructed as reported in Walsh (). DNA extraction from H. assulta assulta () was as reported in Perera et al (), and the DNA library was constructed as described in Perera et al ().…”

“…We performed a phylogenetic analysis using all 13 protein‐coding genes (PCGs) found in the publicly available mitogenomes of selected noctuid species: (a) Agrotis segetum (, Wu, Cui, Du, Gu, & Wei, ), (b) A. ipsilon (, Wu, Cui, & Wei, ), (c) Spodoptera frugiperda (, (Liu, Chai et al, ), (d) S. litura (, Wan, Kim, & Kim, ); (, Liu, Zhu et al, ), (e) Chloridea ( Heliothis ) subflexa (, de Souza, Tay, Czepak, Elfekih, & Walsh, ), selected available Helicoverpa species mitogenomes that included (f) H. punctigera (, Walsh, ), H. assulta assulta (, Li et al, ); , (unpublished), H. zea (, Perera et al, ), and H. armigera armigera (, Yin et al, ). All complete mitogenome sequences were first aligned using the MAFFT alignment program with default parameters as detailed above.…”

“…Currently, there are published mitogenomes of H. armigera (Yin, Hong, Wang, Cao, & Wei, ) from China, H. punctigera (Walsh, ) from Australia, H. zea (Perera, Walsh, & Luttrell, ) from the United States of America, two mitogenomes of H. assulta from China, but no mitogenomes for H. gelotopoeon . For the H. assulta mitogenomes, one has been published (Li, Zhang, Luo, Cui, & Dong, ; GenBank ), while the second is unpublished but publicly available (GenBank ).…”