The chromosomes and the mitogenome of Ceratitis fasciventris (Diptera: Tephritidae): two genetic approaches towards the Ceratitis FAR species complex resolution

Abstract

Ceratitis fasciventris is a serious agricultural pest of the Tephritidae family that belongs to the African Ceratitis FAR species complex. Species limits within the FAR complex are obscure and multidisciplinary approaches have attempted to resolve phylogenetic relationships among its members. These studies support the existence of at least three additional species in the complex, C. anonnae, C. rosa and C. quilicii, while they indicate the presence of two structured populations (F1 and F2) within the C. fasciventris species. In the present study we present the mitotic karyotype, polytene chromosome maps, in situ hybridization data and the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of an F2 population of C. fasciventris. This is the first polytene chromosome map and complete mitogenome of a member of the FAR complex and only the second reported for the Ceratitis genus. Both polytene chromosomes and mitochondrial sequence could provide valuable information and be used as reference for comparative analysis among the members of the complex towards the clarification of their phylogenetic relationships.

The Complete Mitochondrial Genome of Bactrocera carambolae (Diptera: Tephritidae): Genome Description and Phylogenetic Implications

“…The GTG initiation codon seems to be characteristic for the ATP8 gene of the species of the Bactrocera subgenus [53][54][55][56][62][63][64]83,84]. Three of the PCGs possess an incomplete termination codon (Table 1); TA for COI, which is characteristic for all Bactrocera species analyzed so far and T for ND1 and ND5 similarly to the majority of tephritids [52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88]. Incomplete termination codons are common in animal mitochondrial DNA and are likely to be completed by post-transcriptional polyadenylation [89].…”

“…Overlaps restricted to one or two nucleotides can also be observed between ATP6 and COIII, ND3 and tRNA Ala , ND6 and CYTB and CYTB and tRNA Ser ( Table 1). Overlaps that are similar in size and position are common among tephritids [52,55,[58][59][60][61][62][63][64].…”

“…A stretch of 22 thymidines resides at the 5 end of the D-loop (near to the tRNA Ile gene), a feature that is common among tephritid and other insect mitogenomes, and is believed to play a role in the control of transcription and/or replication [54,59,60,81,90]. The 13 nucleotide long motifs TTTAATTTTTTAA and TTAATTTTATTAA were found to be tandemly repeated four times at the same position (D-loop position 212-262) of the M8 and S2 individuals, respectively.…”

“…Partial mitochondrial sequences have been extensively used for exploring relationships among species of the Bactrocera genus; however, they had their limitations, for instance in the discrimination among closely related members of the B. dorsalis complex [9,10,12,14,15,25,27,[36][37][38][39][40][41]. On the other hand, complete mitochondrial genome sequences, which are accumulating rapidly in databases nowadays, have proven to be a valuable alternative approach for phylogeny reconstruction and molecular systematics in several insect groups [42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50], including Tephritidae [51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64]. Especially, when the discrimination of closely related species is attempted, the comparative analysis of complete mitogenomes can help to select the most informative mitochondrial markers/sequences for specific issues [53].…”

A review of more than 30 years of cytogenetic studies of Tephritidae in support of sterile insect technique and global trade

“…For both complexes, multidisciplinary approaches had been and are being used (Hernández‐Ortiz et al., ; De Meyer et al., ; Dias et al., ). The recent publication of polytene chromosome maps of a member of the A. fraterculus complex (Gariou‐Papalexiou et al., ) and the forthcoming publication of mitotic karyotypes and polytene chromosomes maps of a member of the C. FAR complex (Drosopoulou et al., ) are expected to facilitate taxonomic studies in both complexes.…”