First complete mitochondrial genome of Acronictinae (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae): genome description and its phylogenetic implications

Acronicta rumicis Linnaeus, 1758 is a notorious lepidopteran pest species that feed on economically impotant plants, including pears, apples and peaches. The outbreak of this pest can cause severe financial losses and threatens food security. Herein, we sequenced and annotated the entire mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of A. rumicis. The A. rumicis mitogenome was 15,384 bp in size, containing 37 genes (13 protein coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNA genes (tRNAs), 2 ribosomal RNA genes (rRNAs)) usually found in lepidopteran mitogenomes. The mitogenome’s nucleotide composition was highly biased towards using A and T, with positive AT skew and negative GC skew. All PCGs were initiated by typical ATN codons, except for the cox1, which was initiated by the CGA codon. The secondary structure of trnS1 lacked the common dihydrouridine (DHU) arm and replaced by a single loop. The seven bp overlapping region ‘ATGATAA’ located between atp6 and atp8, and the spacer region between trnS2 and nad1 contained an ‘ATACTAA’ motif, which are common in other sequenced lepidopterans. The A + T rich region was 370 bp and included a ‘ATAGA’ motif followed by a 19 bp poly-T stretch and a (AT)10 repeats. The phylogenetic analyses using the Maximum Likelihood (ML) and Bayesian Inference (BI) methods supported A. rumicis belonging to the subfamily Acronictinae. Furthermore, this study clarified a novel and monophyly relationship among Noctuidae with mitogenome data.