鳞翅目昆虫比较线粒体基因组学研究进展

Lepidopteran insects have a marked impact on human society, whether functioning as major pests of agriculture and forestry, pollinators, or a primary producer of silk. Insect mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) has a relatively conserved gene content and gene order, so it has been widely used in molecular phylogeny and evolution. To date, complete mitogenomes have been sequenced for a total of 63 species of Lepidoptera. Among the sequenced mitogenomes, however, only 58 are reference sequences available in GenBank. Here, a comparative analysis of all the mitogenome reference sequences revealed some basic features of lepidopteran mitogenomes. Furthermore, the phylogenetic relationships within Lepidoptera based on the complete mitogenome sequences proved to be similar to that based on traditional morphological characters. This work paves the way for better understanding of the evolution of lepidopteran insects, and suggests that comparative mitogenomic analysis has great potential for resolving phylogenetic relationships among the major groups of insects at the dawn of the postgenomic era.