Xiong Chengjie Cheng Xiong‡, Yongsheng Lin‡, Nemat O. Keyhani§, Junya Shang‡, Yuchen Mao‡, Jiao Yang‡, Minhai Zheng‡, Lixia Yang‡, Huili Pu‡, Longbing Lin‡, Taicang Mu‡, Mengjia Zhu‡, Ziyi Wu‡, Zhenxing Qiu|, Wen Xiong¶, Xiayu Guan‡, Junzhi Qiu‡Corresponding author: Xiong Chengjie Xiong ( 18609200812@163.com ) Corresponding author: Xiayu Guan ( gxy302@126.com ) Corresponding author: Junzhi Qiu ( junzhiqiu@126.com ) © Xiong Chengjie Xiong, Yongsheng Lin, Nemat O. Keyhani, Junya Shang, Yuchen Mao, Jiao Yang, Minhai Zheng, Lixia Yang, Huili Pu, Longbing Lin, Taicang Mu, Mengjia Zhu, Ziyi Wu, Zhenxing Qiu, Wen Xiong, Xiayu Guan, Junzhi Qiu. This is an open access preprint distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Citation:
Xiong XC, Lin Y, Keyhani NO, Shang J, Mao Y, Yang J, Zheng M, Yang L, Pu H, Lin L, Mu T, Zhu M, Wu Z, Qiu Z, Xiong W, Guan X, Qiu J (2024) Mitochondrial genomes from fungal the entomopathogenic Moelleriella genus reveals evolutionary history, intron dynamics and phylogeny. ARPHA Preprints. https://doi.org/10.3897/arphapreprints.e142537 |  |
Members of the Moelleriella (Hypocreales, Clavicipitaceae) genera are insect pathogens with specificity for scale insects and whiteflies. However, no mitochondrial genomes are available for these fungi. Here, we assembled seven mitogenomes from M. zhongdongii, M. libera, M. raciborskii, M. gracilispora, M. oxystoma, Moelleriella sp. CGMCC 3.18909 and Moelleriella sp. CGMCC 3.18913, which varied from 40.8 to 95.7 Kb. Synteny and codon usage bias was relatively conserved; with the mitochondrial gene arrangement completely homologous to the gene order of 16 other species within the Hypocreales. However, extensive intron polymorphism exists between Moelleriella species. Evolutionary analyses revealed that all 15 core protein coding genes had ka/ks < 1, indicating purifying selection pressure. Sequence variation within the mitochondrial ribosome protein S3 (rps3) gene showed the largest genetic distance with the NADH dehydrogenase subunit 4L (nad4L) showing the smallest. Comparative mitogenomic analyses showed that introns were the main factor contributing to the size variation of Moelleriella and more widely in Hypocreales mitogenomes. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that the seven Moelleriella species examined form a well-supported clade, most closely related to Hypocrella. These data present the first mitogenome from Moelleriella and further advance research into the taxonomy, origin, evolution, and genomics of Moelleriella.