Assembling mitogenome of Himalayan Black Bear (U. t. laniger) from low depth reads and its application in drawing phylogenetic inferences

The complete mitogenome of Himalayan black bear (Ursus thibetanus laniger) from Indian Himalayan region was assembled following the modified approach of mitochondrial baiting and mapping using the next-generation sequencing reads. The complete mitogenome was of 16,556 bp long, consisted of 37 genes that contained 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNAs, 2 rRNAs and 1 control region. The complete base composition was 31.33% A, 15.24% G, 25.45%C, and 27.98%T and gene arrangement was similar to the other sub-species of Asiatic black bear. The relative synonymous codon usage analysis revealed the maximum abundance of Isoleucine, Tyrosine, Leucine and Threonine. The assembled mitogenome of U. t. laniger exhibited 99% similarity with the mitogenomes of Himalayan black bear available from Nepal and Tibetan Plateau-Himalaya region. The findings of the present study has proven low depth sequencing data, adequate and highly efficient in rapid recovering the mitochondrial genome by overcoming the conventional strategies of obtaining long-range PCR and subsequently drawing phylogenetic inferences.