Complete mitochondrial genome of Parasa sinica: New insights into the phylogeny of Limacodidae.

In this study, the whole mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of Parasa sinica was sequenced. It contains 15,306 base pairs (bp), 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), two ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs), 22 transfer RNAs (tRNAs), and one non-coding regulatory area (CR), all of which are shared by other lepidopterans. It follows the same gene order as ordinary lepidopterans. Further, out of these 37 genes, 23 are present on the heavy strand whereas the remaining 14 are located on the light strand. The A + T composition of the mitogenome is relatively high. Although P. sinica has a negative AT-skew and GC-skew, the GC-skew value is significantly lower than the AT-skew value. All PCGs, with the exception of CO1, carry the same start codon (ATN). All tRNAs exhibit the usual cloverleaf secondary structure. We identified the conserved motif "ATAGA + poly-T″ found in other lepidopteran insects at the beginning of the CR. We collected the concatenated PCGs sequences in the mitochondrial genome of 15 species of Zygaenoidea, with the sequences of Geometridae as outgroups, including P. sinica, and constructed phylogenetic trees using Bayesian inference (BI) and maximum likelihood (ML) methods. The monolineage of each superfamily is usually well supported. Based on phylogenetic analysis, P. sinica is a member of family Limacodidae, strongly supporting the monophyly of the Zygaenoidea groups.

Transcriptome analysis of immune-related genes in Sesarmops sinensis hepatopancreas in reaction to peptidoglycan challenge.

Sesarmops sinensis is a dominant omnivorous crab species, which plays an important ecological function in salt marsh ecosystems. To better understand its immune system and immune related genes under pathogen infection, the transcriptome was analyzed by comparing the data of S. sinensis hepatopancreas stimulated by PBS and PGN. A set of assembly and annotation identified 39,039 unigenes with an average length of 1105 bp, obtaining 1300 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in all, which included 466 remarkably up-regulated unigenes and 834 remarkably down-regulated unigenes. In addition, based on mensurable real time-polymerase chain reaction and high-throughput sequencing, several immune responsive genes were found to be markedly up-regulated under PGN stimulation. In conclusion, in addition to enriching the existing transcriptome data of S. sinensis, this study also clarified the immune response of S. sinensis to PGN stimulation, which will help us to further understand the crustacean's immune system.