Mitochondrial genome of Monolepta hieroglyphica (Coleoptera: Chrysomeloidea: Chrysomelidae) and phylogenetic analysis

Monolepta hieroglyphica (Motschulsky, 1858) is a major pest of potato, maize, cotton and sorghum in China. In this study, we sequenced and analyzed the complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of M. hieroglyphica. This mitogenome was 15,761 bp long and encoded 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNA genes (tRNAs) and two ribosomal RNA unit genes (rRNAs). Gene order was conserved and identical to most other previously sequenced Galerucinae Most PCGs of M. hieroglyphica have the conventional start codons ATN (six ATT, five ATG and one ATC), with the exception of nad1 (TTG). Except for three genes (cox1, nad4 and nad5) end with the incomplete stop codon T––, all other PCGs terminated with the stop codon TAA or TAG. The whole mitogenome exhibited heavy AT nucleotide bias (80.0%). Phylogenetic analysis positioned M. hieroglyphica in a well-supported clade within the subfamily Galerucinae with Monolepta occifluvis, Monolepta sp. and Paleosepharia posticata. These results provided an important basis for further studies on mitochondrial genome and phylogenetics of Galerucinae.