Research advances on Pulicinae mitochondrial genomes
Pulicinae belongs to Siphonaptera,Pulicoidea,Pulicidae,are common haematophagous ectoparasites in rodents,cats and dogs.A total of 3 genera and 5 species(Ctenocephalides felis,C.canis,C.orientis,Xenopsylla cheopis and Pulex irritans)have been determined.The structural characteristics and polymorphisms of the mitogenome have the following characteristics:the mitogenome retains the typical arrangement of the arthropod ancestor without gene deletions,additions,or rearrangements;higher AT content and both AT-skewness and GC-skewness were negative.The preferred codon usage is similar to most holometabolous insects.The tRNA-Ser(trnS1)gene of P.irritans shows a typical cloverleaf structure,and the other species have the same trnS1 but lacks the D-arm with the metazoan ani-mals.The trnS1 of 5 species within the Pulicinae subfamily replaced the common GCU with UCU as the anticodon.The control region of the Pulicinae subfamily is relatively large with up to more than 7 kb in length and are mainly dinucleotide repeats.Similar to most holometabolous insects,there is a 7 bp conserved overlapping region between NADH dehydrogenase subunit 4(nad4)and nad4L.This article aims to provide reference for the evolution of the flea subfamily in holometamorphosis insects in the future.