Description of mitochon genome and phylogenetic considerations of Sabethes bipartipes, Sabethes cyaneus, Sabethes quasicyaneus, and Sabethes tarsopus (Diptera: Culicidae)

Abstract

The genus Sabethes (Diptera: Culicidae) comprises species of great epidemiological relevance, particularly involved in transmission cycles of the Yellow fever virus in South America. Given the unavailability of information related to aspects of evolutionary biology and molecular taxonomy of species of this genus of mosquitoes, we report here the first sequencing of the mitochondrial genomes of Sabethes bipartipes, Sabethes cyaneus, Sabethes tarsopus, and Sabethes quasicyaneus. The sequences obtained showed an average length of 14,920 bp, comprising 37 functional genes (13 PCGs, 22 tRNA, and 02 rRNA). The phylogenies reconstructed by Maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference methods, based on the concatenated sequences of all 13 PCGs, produced similar topologies and strongly supported the monophyletic relationship between the Sabethes subgenera, corroborating the known taxonomic classification based on aspects of the external morphology of the taxa assessed. The data and information produced from the Sabethes species evaluated here may be useful for future taxonomic and evolutionary studies of the genus, as well as the Culicidae family.

Keywords: Culicidae; Genome sequencing; Mitochondrial genome; Phylogeny; Sabethes.