MBE Advance Access published online on June 27, 2003
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msg176
Molecular Biology and Evolution © Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution 2003; all rights reserved
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1 Department of Microbiology and Parasitology, and Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, 4072, Australia
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: r.shao{at}mailbox.uq.edu.au.
A number of studies indicated that lineages of animals with high rates of mitochondrial (mt) gene rearrangement might have high rates of mt nucleotide substitution. We chose hemipteroid insects and insects to test the idea that rates of mt gene rearrangement and mt nucleotide substitution are correlated. For this purpose, we sequenced the mt genome of a lepidopsocid from the Psocoptera, the only order of hemipteroid insects for which an entire mtDNA sequence is not available. The mt genome of this lepidopsocid is circular, 16,924 bp long and contains 37 genes and a putative control region; seven tRNA genes and a protein-coding gene in this genome have changed positions relative to the ancestral arrangement of mt genes of insects. We then compared the relative rates of nucleotide substitution among species from each of the four orders of hemipteroid insects, and among the 20 insects whose mt genomes have been sequenced entirely. All comparisons among the hemipteroid insects showed that species with higher rates of gene rearrangement also had significantly higher rates of nucleotide substitution statistically, than species with lower rates of gene rearrangement. In comparisons among the 20 insects, where the mt genomes of the two species differed by more than five break-points, the more rearranged species always had a significantly higher rate of nucleotide substitution than the less rearranged species. However, in comparisons where the mt genomes of two species differed by five or less break-points, the more rearranged species did not always have a significantly higher rate of nucleotide substitution than the less rearranged species. We tested the statistical significance of the correlation between the rates of mt gene rearrangement and mt nucleotide substitution with nine pairs of insects which were phylogenetically independent from one another. We found that the correlation was positive and statistically significant (R2 = 0.73, p = 0.01; Rs = 0.67, p < 0.05). We propose that increased rates of nucleotide substitution may lead to increased rates of gene rearrangement in the mt genomes of insects. Key Words:
hemipteroid, Psocoptera, mitochondrial clock, molecular evolution, rate heterogeneity
© 2003 Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution
Original Articles
Rates of Gene Rearrangement and Nucleotide Substitution Are Correlated in the Mitochondrial Genomes of Insects
2 Institute of Conservation Biology, Department of Biology, Wollongong University, Wollongong, New South Wales, 2522, Australia
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