Genetic polymorphism of mtCOI locus in belarussian populations of pine bark beetle Ips Acuminatus Gyll.

Abstract

Sequencing and annotation of the pine bark beetle Ips acuminatus Gyll. mitochondrial genome (registration number in NCBI GenBank MK988441), including the insect barcoding marker – the part of the subunit I of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase gene (mtCOI), were carried out. A comparative assessment of the level of polymorphism among mtDNA loci revealed that mtcoI has moderate level of variability. A preliminary study of the Belarusian populations of the pine bark beetle showed 18 haplotype variants at the mtCOI marker locus (mtcoI gene fragment). Significant portion of the studied individuals (50 %) were heteroplasmic – contained at least two mtCOI haplotypes in the genome together. Studying the level of genetic differentiation between haplotypes using the Jukes–Cantor (JC) and Kimura (K80) models revealed a wide range of variation in the values of the evolutionary distance indicator D – from 0.001 to 0.066, which corresponded to 1–46 nucleotide substitutions for the studied region (690 nr) in individual haplotypes. Analysis of the peptide sequences of the pine bark beetle mtCOI locus using 3D modeling technology, as well as using Ramachandran maps and the NCBI CDART database, showed that the domain architecture of the protein remains unchanged for the majority (94 %) of haplotypes and the functionality of allozymes is not violated, that indicates the relatively selectively neutral nature of the detected polymorphism. Based on the obtained total molecular genetic data, it was concluded that the degree of informational content of the mtCOI marker (based on mtcoI) is sufficient to carry out population-genetic studies of the pine bark beetle, including an assessment of its migration activity.

Keywords

• mitochondrial dna
• haplotype
• sequencing