Search

Forcipomyia Meigen, 1818, is the second-largest genus of the family Ceratopogonidae, having medico veterinary and agricultural importance. A few mitogenomes of Ceratopogonidae have previously been available. Here, we aimed to characterize the whole mitogenome of Forcipomyia pulchrithorax Edwards, 1924, collected from Central Anatolia Region of the Türkiye using NGS to contribute to the genetic diversity within this family. The mitogenome of F. pulchrithorax (OR666457) consisted of a circular DNA molecule spanning 15,930 bp and containing 72.7% AT content. It includes 13 proteincoding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, 2 ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes, and 1 control region. All PCGs exhibited typical ATN start codons and followed the conventional TAN stop codons, except COX1, COX2, COX3, ND1, and ND5, which ended with incomplete codons. The 22 tRNA genes demonstrated the ability to form a cloverleaf structure, except tRNA-Ser1, which lacked DHU arm, similar to most insect mitogenomes. The ML phylogenetic analyses clearly delineated the species of Culicomorpha into well supported monophyletic clades. Forcipomyia pulchrithorax was clustered with the Ceratopogonidae species constituting an outer taxon among the Culicomorpha. The comprehensive mitogenome of F. pulchrithorax will be valuable for future studies focused on the phylogenetic characterization and diversity of Ceratopogonidae within the Culicomorpha. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genetic diversity and evolutionary history of the epidemic plum pox virus strain M (PPV‐M) have been poorly studied. We sequenced the genomes of 69 PPV‐M isolates selected from different Turkish regions. These new nearly full‐length genomic sequences were analysed together with 21 previously reported Turkish sequences of the PPV‐MIs clade and with 50 sequences of other PPV‐M isolates collected worldwide, including four sequences of Albanian isolates. Major genomic features were maintained in all new PPV‐M genomic sequences, with the highest divergence detected in the PIPO, P1 and CP proteins. Turkish PPV‐M isolates displayed a high genetic diversity and grouped into two sister clades, one formed by PPV‐MIs isolates only and a second clade consisting of the previously described PPV‐Ma and PPV‐Mb subclades. The combined diversity for PPV‐M isolates (Europe, Japan and Turkey) reached to 0.022 ± 0.001, which is slightly higher than the diversity of the globally distributed PPV‐D strain (0.017 ± 0.001). Likewise, the genetic diversity of PPV‐M (0.020 ± 0.001) in Turkey was found to be comparable to that observed for PPV‐M isolates from other countries (0.021 ± 0.001) and even marginally higher if considering partial genomic sequences that allow the inclusion of a much larger number of isolates and countries. Overall, the original distribution of PPV‐MIs, which seems to be almost specific to Turkey, and the high genetic diversity of PPV‐MIs and other Turkish PPV‐M isolates suggest a long evolutionary history of M isolates in Turkey and position this country as a centre of diversity of PPV‐M. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]