2014

http://informahealthcare.com/mdnISSN: 1940-1736 (print), 1940-1744 (electronic)

Mitochondrial DNA, 2014; 25(1): 27–28! 2014 Informa UK Ltd. DOI: 10.3109/19401736.2013.775273

MITOGENOME ANNOUNCEMENT

Complete mitochondrial genome of the moon jellyfish, Aurelia sp. nov.(Cnidaria, Scyphozoa)

Dae-Sik Hwang1, Eunji Park2, Yong-Jin Won2, and Jae-Seong Lee1,3

1Department of Molecular and Environmental Bioscience, Graduate School, Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea, 2Division of EcoScience, Ewha

Womans University, Seoul, South Korea, and 3Department of Chemistry, College of Natural Sciences, Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea

Abstract

We sequenced 16,971 bp of the linear mitochondrial DNA of the moon jellyfish Aurelia sp. nov.and characterized it by comparing with Aurelia aurita. They had 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs),16S rRNA and 12S rRNA with three tRNAs (tRNA-Leu, tRNA-Ser(TGA), tRNA-Met). Both haveanother two PCGs, orf969 and orf324 with telomeres at both ends. After comparison of Aureliasp. nov. with Aurelia aurita, we found low-protein similarity of orf969 (59%) and orf324 (75%),respectively, while the other 13 PCGs showed 80% to 98% protein similarities.

Keywords

Aurelia sp. nov., complete mitochondrialgenome, moon jellyfish

History

Received 7 February 2013Accepted 8 February 2013Published online 14 March 2013

The genus Aurelia is a scyphozoan jellyfish (Cnidaria,Scyphozoa), containing at least 13 species but many species arestill not formally described (Dawson, 2003) due to a lack ofmitochondrial genome sequences. To date, Shao et al. (2006)firstly reported the complete mitochondrial genome from Aureliaaurita, and recently Zou et al. (2012) sequenced the completemitochondrial genome from freshwater jellyfish Craspedacustasowerbyi.

Regarding the molecular phylogenetic relationships of jelly-fish, several researchers tried to reveal the placement of jellyfishthrough a phylogenetic analysis of the Cnidaria (Kayal et al.,2012, 2013; Park et al., 2012). Ki et al. (2008, 2009, 2010)reported a simultaneous detection of Aurelia and Chrysaorascyphozoan jellyfish using a DNA microarray. The aim was toresolve the mechanisms of moon jellyfish blooming usingmitochondrial COI and nuclear rDNA sequences. However,there is no report on the complete mitochondrial genome of thecongeneric Aurelia sp. nov. This would allow a reconstruction ofthe molecular phylogenetic relationship between both sisterspecies. In this paper, we firstly report complete mitochondrialDNA from Aurelia sp. nov. in order to obtain basic geneticinformation about the Korean population of Aurelia sp. nov.

We amplified mitochondrial DNA of Aurelia sp. nov. usingthe PCR method and genome walking using random primers.The complete mitochondrial genome of Aurelia sp. nov. is16,971 bp (GenBank Accession No. HQ694729). The mitochon-drial genome organization of Aurelia sp. nov. is represented inTable 1. The direction of genes is identical with those of othermoon jellyfish, A. aurita. However, Aurelia sp. nov. has differentset of tRNAs (tRNA-Leu, tRNA-Ser(TGA), tRNA-Met) comparedto A. aurita, containing tRNA-Met and tRNA-Trp. Also as shownby Shao et al. (2006), Aurelia sp. nov. has additional PCGs such

as orf969 and orf324 but the DNA and protein similarities of13 PCGs and two additional PCGs were significantly different.Out of 13 PCGs, all the genes showed complete stop codons usingTAA and TAG. There is also slight anti-G bias (13.61% and14.04%) on the 2nd and 3rd position of PCGs. Particularly there isslight anti-C bias (14.29%) on the 1st position of PCGs. Also,Aurelia sp. nov. used GTG as a start codon of the ND6 butA. aurita used GTG as start codon for ND3 protein (Shao et al.,2006). The mitochondrial genome base composition for 13 PCGswas 29.11% for A, 36.20% for T, 17.40% for G and 17.29% for C.The AþT base composition (65.31%) was higher than GþC(34.69%), suggesting that the moon jellyfish Aurelia sp. nov. hassignificant low GþC ratio in the mitochondrial genome.

Correspondence: Jae-Seong Lee, PhD, Department of Chemistry,College of Natural Sciences, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, SouthKorea. Tel: þ82 2 2220 0769. Fax: þ82 2 2299 9450. E-mail:jslee2@hanyang.ac.kr

Table 1. The genomic organization of mitochondrial genes of Aureliasp. Nov.

Gene From To Size (bp) Start Stop

Telomere 1 371 371orf 969 372 1340 969 ATG TAAorf327 1360 1686 327 ATG TAA16S rRNA 1687 3504 1818CO1 3505 5085 1581 ATG TAGtRNA-Leu 5091 5157 67CO2 5179 5904 726 ATA TAGtRNA-Ser (TGA) 5910 5979 70ATP8 5985 6188 204 ATG TAAATP6 6188 6892 705 ATG TAACO3 6892 7677 786 ATG TAAtRNA-Met 7689 7759 71ND2 7761 9080 1320 ATG TAAND5 9081 10898 1818 ATG TAA12S rRNA 10,899 11,855 957 ATG TAGND6 11,856 12,428 573 GTG TAAND3 12,382 12,741 360 ATG TAAND4L 12,732 13,034 303 ATG TAAND1 13,034 14,005 972 ATG TAAND4L 14,006 15,448 1443 ATG TAGCyt b 15,452 16,591 1140 ATG TAGTelomere 16,592 16,971 380

Mito

chon

dria

l DN

A D

ownl

oade

d fr

om in

form

ahea

lthca

re.c

om b

y M

emor

ial U

nive

rsity

of

New

foun

dlan

d on

07/

18/1

4Fo

r pe

rson

al u

se o

nly.

Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Hans-U. Dahms for his comments on the manuscript.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone areresponsible for the content and writing of the paper.

This work was supported by a grant of the Korea Electric PowerResearch Institute (R-2005-7-062) funded to Jae-Seong Lee.

References

Dawson MN. (2003). Macro-morphological variation among crypticspecies of the moon jellyfish, Aurelia (Cnidaria: Scyphozoa). Mar Biol143:369–79.

Kayal E, Bentlage B, Collins AG, Kayal M, Pirro S, Lavrov DV. (2012).Evolution of linear mitochondrial genomes in medusozoan cnidarians.Genome Biol Evol 4:1–12.

Kayal E, Roure B, Philippe H, Collins AG, Lavrov DV. (2013). Cnidarianphylogenetic relationships as revealed by mitogenomics. BMC EvolBiol 13:5.

Ki J-S, Hwang D-S, Lee J-S. (2010). Simultaneous detection of Aureliaand Chrysaora scyphozoan jellyfish on a DNA microarray. J Mar BiolAssoc UK 90:1111–17.

Ki J-S, Hwang D-S, Shin K, Yoon WD, Lim D, Kang YS, Lee Y, Lee J-S.(2008). Recent moon jelly (Aurelia sp.1) blooms in Korean coastalwaters suggest global expansion: Examples inferred from mitochon-drial COI and nuclear ITS-5.8S rDNA sequences. ICES J Mar Sci 65:443–52.

Ki J-S, Kim I-C, Lee J-S. (2009). Comparative analysis of nuclearribosomal DNA from the moon jelly Aurelia sp.1 (Cnidaria:Scyphozoa) with characterizations of the 18S, 28S genes and theintergenic spacer (IGS). Hydrobiologia 616:229–39.

Park E, Hwang D-S, Lee J-S, Song J-I, Seo T-K, Won Y-J. (2012).Estimation of divergence times in cnidarian evolution based onmitochondrial protein-coding genes and the fossil record.Mol Phylogenet Evol 62:329–45.

Shao Z, Graf S, Chaga OY, Lavrov DV. (2006). Mitochondrial genome ofthe moon jelly Aurelia aurita (Cnidaria, Scyphozoa): A linear DNAmolecule encoding a putative DNA-dependent DNA polymerase.Gene 381:92–101.

Zou H, Zhang J, Li W, Wu S, Wang G. (2012). Mitochondrial genome ofthe freshwater jellyfish Craspedacusta sowerbyi and phylogenetics ofMedusozoa. PLoS One 7:e51465.

28 D.-S. Hwang et al. Mitochondrial DNA, 2014; 25(1): 27–28

Mito

chon

dria

l DN

A D

ownl

oade

d fr

om in

form

ahea

lthca

re.c

om b

y M

emor

ial U

nive

rsity

of

New

foun

dlan

d on

07/

18/1

4Fo

r pe

rson

al u

se o

nly.