Folia Parasitologica 71:002 (2024) | DOI: 10.14411/fp.2024.002

Comprehensive molecular characterisation of the complete mitogenome of Ergasilus tumidus and phylogenetic relationships of Copepoda inferred from mitogenomes

Yan Huang¹, Jin-Mei Feng², Wei Liu¹, Bin-Lian Sun¹, Xi-Ji Shu¹, Wen-Xiang Li³, Gui-Tang Wang³, Cong-Jie Hua ORCID...^{1, 2}

¹ Hubei Key Laboratory of Cognitive and Affective Disorders, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, School of Medicine, Jianghan University, Wuhan, China;

² Department of Pathogenic Biology, School of Medicine, Jianghan University, Wuhan, China;

³ State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan China

Although parasitic copepods of the genus Ergasilus von Nordmann, 1832 are globally distributed parasites of fish, their phylogenetic relationships with other Copepoda are not clear, and the characteristics of their mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) are not thoroughly understood. The objective of this study was to address these knowledge gaps by sequencing the complete mitogenome of Ergasilus tumidus Markevich, 1940. The complete mitogenome (GenBank Acc. No. OQ596537) was 14,431 bp long and it comprised 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 tRNAs, two tRNAs, and two control regions (CRs). Phylogenetic analyses, conducted using concatenated nucleotide and amino acid sequences of 13 protein-coding genes, produced two partially incongruent topologies. While the order Calanoida was consistently resolved as the sister lineage to the other three orders, topological instability was observed in the relationships of the orders Cyclopoida, Siphonostomatoida and Harpacticoida. Siphonostomatoida clustered with Cyclopoida in the nucleotide-based phylogeny, but with Harpacticoida in the amino acid-based phylogeny. The latter topology conforms to the widely accepted relationships, but we speculate that the former topology is more likely to be the correct one. Our study provides a complete mitogenome sequence of E. tumidus, which helps us better understand the molecular evolution of the genus Ergasilus. Additionally, we suggest a different perspective on the controversial phylogenetic relationships among Siphonostomatoida, Cyclopoida and Harpacticoida, diverging from previously accepted views.

Keywords: Ergasilus, gene order, mitogenome, phylogeny

Received: July 29, 2023; Revised: November 19, 2023; Accepted: January 5, 2024; Published online: February 7, 2024  Show citation