The Mitochondrial Genome of Nematodontous Moss <i>Polytrichum commune</i> and Analysis of Intergenic Repeats Distribution Among Bryophyta

Abstract

An early-branched moss Polytrichum commune is a widely accepted model object for ecological, environmental, physiological, and genetic studies. Its mitochondrial genome has been sequenced and annotated. The genome contains 67 genes in total and has a length equal to 114,831 bp, which exceeds the length of most known mitochondrial genomes for mosses. A phylogenetic tree based on 33 coding sequences of mitochondrial genome was constructed, and the pairwise identity of whole mitogenome sequences was estimated for 44 Bryophyta species. Based on the analysis of pairwise identity, it was shown that mitogenomes of Tetraphis pellucida and Buxbaumia aphylla sufficiently differ from those of other Bryophyta species. The first known Bryophyta mitogenome rearrangement was identified in Pogonatum inflexum within Polytrichopsida. Based on the intergenic repeats occurrence in 44 bryophyte mitochondrial genomes and available data on repetitive elements content in other Viridiplantae groups, it was noted for the first time that greater stability of the moss’s mitogenomes is probably associated mainly with the absence of long (>1 kb) repeats. The phenomenon of absence of the intergenic repetitive elements in the terminal clades species was discovered.

Keywords

• Bryophyta
• <i>Polytrichum</i>
• mitochondrial genome
• simple sequence repeats
• intergenic repeats
• molecular phylogeny