Jinhong Yang, Weiqing Kong
To explore the evolutionary relationships of Noctuoidea, the complete mitochondrial genome of Lemyra melli (Daniel) was sequenced and annotated. It was 15 418 bp in size, including 37 genes and one AT-rich region. The nucleotide composition was biased towards A+T (78.67%). Most of the protein-coding genes are initiated by typical ATN codons, except for coxI, which uses a CGA. Nine are terminated with TAA or TAG, whereas four genes, coxI, coxII, nad4 and nad6, harbor incomplete termination codons of a single T. All of the tRNA genes have the typical clover-leaf structure, except trnS (AGN). The A+T-rich region is 338 bp, with a 93.38% AT content and several conserved structures, including a ATAGA + poly T stretch, ATTTA + (AT)n, a poly(A), stem-and-loop structure with 5' flanking “TATA” and 3' flanking “GAAT” motifs and tandem-repeated elements. The phylogenetic relationship among the superfamily Noctuoidea is [Notodontidae + (Erebidae + (Nolidae + (Euteliidae + Noctuidae)))], and inside family Erebidae is [Arctiinae + (Aganainae + Lymantriidae)].
