The Complete Mitochondrial Genome Sequence of Bactericera cockerelli and Comparison with Three Other Psylloidea Species

Potato psyllid (Bactericera cockerelli) is an important pest of potato, tomato and pepper. Not only could a toxin secreted by nymphs results in serious phytotoxemia in some host plants, but also over the past few years B. cockerelli was shown to transmit “Candidatus Liberibacter solanacearum”, the putative bacterial pathogen of potato zebra chip (ZC) disease, to potato and tomato. ZC has caused devastating losses to potato production in the western U.S., Mexico, and elsewhere. New knowledge of the genetic diversity of the B. cockerelli is needed to develop improved strategies to manage pest populations. Mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) sequencing provides important knowledge about insect evolution and diversity in and among populations. This report provides the first complete B. cockerelli mitogenome sequence as determined by next generation sequencing technology (Illumina MiSeq). The circular B. cockerelli mitogenome had a size of 15,220 bp with 13 protein-coding gene (PCGs), 2 ribosomal RNA genes (rRNAs), 22 transfer RNA genes (tRNAs), and a non-coding region of 975 bp. The overall gene order of the B. cockerelli mitogenome is identical to three other published Psylloidea mitogenomes: one species from the Triozidae, Paratrioza sinica; and two species from the Psyllidae, Cacopsylla coccinea and Pachypsylla venusta. This suggests all of these species share a common ancestral mitogenome. However, sequence analyses revealed differences between and among the insect families, in particular a unique region that can be folded into three stem-loop secondary structures present only within the B. cockerelli mitogenome. A phylogenetic tree based on the 13 PCGs matched an existing taxonomy scheme that was based on morphological characteristics. The available complete mitogenome sequence makes it accessible to all genes for future population diversity evaluation of B. cockerelli.