| Description |
Insect mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) are usually small closed-circular molecules (15-20 kb) with 37 genes, including 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), two ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes and 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, as well as a large non-coding element, called the A+T rich or control region, which regulates transcription and replication (Wolstenholme, 1992; Boore, 1999). Because of their unique features such as gene content conservation, maternal inheritance and rapid evolution, mitogenome sequences have been widely used as molecular markers for diverse evolutionary studies (Boore, 1999; Krzywinski et al., 2006). |
