Complete mitochondrial genome sequence of Acromitus flagellatus and its phylogenetic relationship with related jellyfish species

Abstract

This study describes the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of the scyphozoan Acromitus flagellatus (Maas, 1903), a blooming jellyfish found in the coastal areas of Hainan, China. Its mitochondrial DNA is 16,779 bp in length and has a linear structure, comprising 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), two rRNAs (s-rRNA and l-rRNA), and two tRNAs (trna-W-TCA and trna-M-CAT). A + T content was 65.39% (A: 29.27%, C: 16.59%, G: 18.03%, and T: 36.12%). ATG was the start codon in 11 PCGs: COX1, COX2, ATP8, ATP6, COX3, NAD2, NAD6, NAD4l, NAD1, NAD4, and COB. NAD5 and NAD3 had GTG as the start codon. TAG was the stop codon for COX2, NAD6, and COB. The other 10 PCGs were terminated by TAA. The neighbor-joining phylogenetic tree of the 15 related jellyfish species showed that A. flagellatus is closely related to Nemopilema nomurai and Rhopilema esculentum.

Keywords

• acromitus flagellatus
• scyphozoan
• jellyfish blooms
• mitochondrial genome