Structure and comparative analysis of the mitochondrial genomes of Liolaemus lizards with different modes of reproduction and ploidy levels

JULIÁN VALDÉS *; SAMOLUK, SERGIO SEBASTIÁN *; CRISTIAN S ABDALA; DIEGO BALDO; SEIJO, JOSÉ GUILLERMO

peerj

Corte Madera CA: PeerJ Inc.

Año: 2021

2167-8359

Liolaemus is the most specious genus of the Squamata lizards in South America,presenting exceptional evolutionary radiation and speciation patterns. This recentdiversification complicates the formal taxonomic treatment and the phylogeneticanalyses of this group, causing relationships among species to remain controversial.Here we used Next-Generation Sequencing to do a comparative analysis of thestructure and organization of the complete mitochondrial genomes of threedifferently related species of Liolaemus and with different reproductive strategies andploidy levels. The annotated mitochondrial genomes of ca. 17 kb are the first for theLiolaemidae family. Despite the high levels of sequence similarity among the threemitochondrial genomes over most of their lengths, the comparative analyses revealedvariations at the stop codons of the protein coding genes and the structure of thetRNAs among species. The presence of a non-canonical dihydrouridine loop is anovelty for the pleurodonts iguanians. But the highest level of variability wasobserved in two repetitive sequences of the control region, which were responsible formost of the length heterogeneity of the mitochondrial genomes. These tandemrepeats may be useful markers to analyze relationships of closely related species ofLiolaemus and related genera and to conduct population and phylogenetic studies.