Unfolding the mitochondrial genome structure of green semilooper (Chrysodeixis acuta Walker): An emerging pest of onion (Allium cepa L.).

Onion is the most important crop challenged by a diverse group of insect pests in the agricultural ecosystem. The green semilooper (Chrysodeixis acuta Walker), a widespread tomato and soybean pest, has lately been described as an emergent onion crop pest in India. C. acuta whole mitochondrial genome was sequenced in this work. The circular genome of C. acuta measured 15,743 base pairs (bp) in length. Thirteen protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 tRNA genes, two rRNA genes, and one control region were found in the 37 sequence elements. With an average 395 bp gene length, the maximum and minimum gene length observed was 1749 bp and 63 bp of nad5 and trnR, respectively. Nine of the thirteen PCGs have (ATN) as a stop codon, while the other four have a single (T) as a stop codon. Except for trnS1, all of the tRNAs were capable of producing a conventional clover leaf structure. Conserved ATAGA motif sequences and poly-T stretch were identified at the start of the control region. Six overlapping areas and 18 intergenic spacer regions were found, with sizes ranged from 1 to 20 bp and 1 to 111 bp correspondingly. Phylogenetically, C. acuta belongs to the Plusiinae subfamily of the Noctuidae superfamily, and is closely linked to Trichoplusia ni species from the same subfamily. In the present study, the emerging onion pest C. acuta has its complete mitochondrial genome sequenced for the first time.

Introduction

Onion (Allium cepa L.) of the family Alliaceae has been cultivated for more than 5000 years [1]. Though onion is one of the important vegetables, it is also being used as a spice for flavoring various cuisines globally [2-4]. Being a bulbous crop, onion is mainly grown for its bulbs. However, the green leaves are also consumed worldwide as raw, cooked, semi-cooked, or in processed forms as a condiment, nutritional, nutraceutical, and medicinal purposes [3, 5, 6]. India is the second-largest producer (26738.000 MT), consumer, and exporter of onion globally (https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL). But unfortunately, the productivity per hectare is very low compared to countries where onion is grown commercially. The onion agro-ecosystem has a highly diverse insect pest complex, among which onion thrips, Thrips tabaci is the key pest of onion [7]. Besides thrips, several defoliators of the order lepidoptera are found at damaging levels in onions causing monetary loss globally [1, 2]. These insect pests affect almost every stage of the onion and cause a potential yield loss of 20 to 90% in onion production [8, 9]. Insects can coevolve with the host plants, a relatively frequent phenomenon attributed to the prevailing environmental condition and host plant availability [10-12]. Subsequently, insects pose a serious threat by expanding their geographic distribution and host range.

Green semilooper Chrysodeixis acuta Walker, an important established pest of soybean and tomato across India, is also becoming an emerging onion pest recently. Onion is commonly intercropped with soybean in India’s southern and central agricultural zones to limit insect pests by colonizing biocontrol agents [13]. C. acuta was recorded in onions for the first time in Maharashtra, India, in 2017–2018 [14]. The glossy green larvae are highly polyphagous, multivoltine species with huge potential to spread to new locations and adapt to new climatic or ecological conditions, which is likely why it has recently infested onions [14]. C. acuta has a wide range of hosts, including various vegetables, grains, and fruit crops [15-17]. C. acuta, like most defoliators, feeds on onion leaves; early instars scrape the leaves’ mesophyll tissue, leaving papery white structures, while later instars bore enormous feeding holes. Though this pest currently causes minimal damage to onion crops, significant defoliation by these caterpillars is expected where the soybean-onion cropping system is practiced [14]. Excessive defoliation can lower the net photosynthetic area, resulting in reduction of bulb size.

There is very little information available on the geographic variability and genetic structure of C. acuta. Chrysodeixis belongs to the Plusiinae subfamily and the Noctuidae family of moths. This subfamily is taxonomically compact and moderately large. More than 500 species have been identified globally [18] with 59 species belonging to 25 genera and three tribes [19] Nonetheless, the NCBI GenBank (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) only contains mitochondrial genome data only for four species from plusiinae subfamily: Diachrysia nadeja (MT916722), Trichoplusia ni (MK714850), Ctenoplusia albostriata (MN495624), and Ctenoplusia limbirena (KM244665). However, no pest species from the genus Chrysodeixis was sequenced to date even though some of the economically important pests under this genus are Chrysodeixis chalcites, Chrysodeixis eriosoma, Chrysodeixis includens, and Chrysodeixis acuta.

Plusiinae subfamily larvae are usually referred to as semiloopers. They are distinguished by 3 pairs of abdominal legs (prolegs) with biordinal crochets. In contrast, adult moths are robust, small to medium-sized, with a characteristic metallic spot in the center of the forewing. Morphological techniques cannot reliably distinguish these pests. However, taxonomic identification of the particular pest species is the fundamental step to device a suitable management strategy [20]. As a result, the mitochondrial (mt) genome of insects is frequently utilized as a molecular marker to disclose basic information at the genomic level for phylogenetic inference, molecular evolution, identification of species, geographic distribution, and population dynamics [21, 22]. Therefore, in the present study, the whole mt genome of C. acuta was assembled for the first time using next-generation sequencing (NGS), which might provide a solution for species evolution and phylogeny. Furthermore, the extensive genetic information obtained from this investigation regarding this new onion pest may aid in devising effective control or preventative strategies.

Materials and methods

Sample collection

Green semilooper, Chrysodeixis acuta larvae were collected from onion plants at the Indian Council of Agriculture Research—Directorate of Onion and Garlic Research (ICAR-DOGR), situated at the (latitude: 27°19’00.2 N, longitude: 82°25’00.1 E, 553.8 meters above sea level) Pune, Maharashtra, India. The insects were initially reared in the laboratory. After completion of the life cycle, newly emerged adults from a single egg mass were collected, one pair was preserved in the insect repository of the Center with voucher specimen number: DOGR Voucher 15 following standard procedures. To further confirm the species identity, larval specimens were analyzed by ‘DNA barcoding’ at ICAR-DOGR, Pune, India and the sequence was submitted under the accession number MT644267 in NCBI GenBank and GBMNC55083-20 in Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD).

Sample preparation and DNA extraction

Laboratory reared fully grown fourth instar larvae of C. acuta were kept in a refrigerator at -20°C in 100 percent ethanol until the experiment. According to the manufacturer’s instructions, total genomic DNA was extracted using the DNeasy Blood and Tissue Kit (QIAGEN, Germany). The quality and amount of extracted DNA were assessed using a 1% agarose gel and with SmartSpec 3000 UV/Visible Spectrophotometer at 260 and 280 nm (Bio-Rad, Hercules, California, USA). By referring to the REPLI-g Mitochondrial DNA Kit (QIAGEN, Germany) protocol, mitochondrial DNA was isolated from genomic DNA.

Sequencing and mitogenome analysis

The mt genome was sequenced using the Illumina Next Seq 500 sequencing platform and Trimmomatic (v0.38) [23] was used to eliminate sequences of adaptor, ambiguous reads (reads having >5% unidentified nucleotides), and junk sequences (reads having > 10% quality threshold (QV) 20 phred score) from sequenced raw data to get high-quality clean reads. The high-quality reads aligned to the reference sequences with the help of BWA MEM (version 0.7.17) [24]. The consensus sequence was extracted using SAM toolsmpileup [25]. The consensus sequence was employed to identify protein-coding and RNA genes in the sample. The MITOS algorithm was used for genes prediction from the invertebrates’ mitochondrial genome [26].

The protein-coding and rRNA genes were manually annotated and verified comparing them with four mitogenome sequences of Diachrysia natija (MT916722), Trichoplusia ni (MK714850), Ctenoplusia albostriata (MN495624), and Ctenoplusia limbirena (KM244665) of subfamily Plusiinae available in GenBank. Using tRNAscanSEv 2.0 and a 15.0 covariance limit value, the Mito/Chloroplast model was utilized to recheck the MITOS downloaded two-dimensional tRNA structures [27]. The CGview server was used to generate the circular map of the complete mt genome, GC concentration, and GC skew [28]. Finally, protein-coding sequence regions of mitochondria were assembled and aligned in Mega version X using ClustalW with basic parameters [29].

The A+T contents, codon use, and relative synonymous codon usage (RSCU) of the PCGs were analyzed by using MEGA version X. The GC and AT skews were calculated utilizing the formulas (GC skew = [G-C] / [G+C] and AT skew = [A-T] / [A+T]) given by Perna and Kocher [30]. The overlapping and intergenic spacer region between genes were manually calculated. The synonymous (Ks) and nonsynonymous substitution rates (Ka) for each Protein-coding gene were calculated using the DnaSP 6.0 and Jukes-Cantor adjusted Ka/Ks (JKa/JKs) software programmes [31]. The control region tandem repeats were predicted by using Tandem Repetitions Finder tool with default settings [32]. The assembled and annotated C. acuta mitogenome has been submitted under the accession number OL892047 in NCBI GenBank.

Phylogenetic analysis

All of the available complete Nocutidae mitogenomes (55mitogenomes) were chosen for the phylogenetic study. One of the 55 Nocutidae mitogenomes was sequenced in this study, and the rest samples were obtained from the NCBI database.

The phylogenetic study used concatenated nucleotide sequences from 13 PCGs datasets. The PCG was aligned using MAFFT 7 (https://mat.cbrc.jp/alignment/server/) based on codons for amino acids [33]. Similarly, to remove ambiguously aligned sites from PCG alignments, GBlocks v.0.91b (http://molevol.cmima.csic.es/castresana/Gblocks/Gblocksdocumentation.html) was used [34]. MEGA 10.0 was used as the final quality check for all of the alignments. All gene alignments were concatenated using PhyloSuite 1.2.1 [35]. PCG123 matrix with single sequences in the following order: nad2, cox1, cox2, atp8, atp6, cox3, nad3, nad5, nad4, nad4L, nad6, cytb, and nad1. For phylogenetic reconstruction, these thirteen PCGs were concatenated. The best partitioning schemes were chosen using Partition Finder 2.1.1 with the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) and greedy algorithm (www.phylo.org) [36]. According to BIC, the GTR+I+G model was ideal for nucleotide alignment analysis. PHYML online web server utilized the optimum substitution model obtained from Model Test to infer maximum likelihood (ML) analysis, and model parameter values were calculated [37]. Bayesian analyses were performed by utilizing Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method with software, Mr. Bayes v.3.1.2 [38] having two independent runs of 2 × 106 generations with four chains with trees sampled each 1000th generation. Mr. Bayes’ "sump" command was used to evaluate the similar values for every post-analysis trees and the convergence and burn-in parameters. The top 100 trees from each run were utilized for burn-in, and the remaining trees were used to form a consensus tree with a 50% majority rule.

Results and discussion

Organization of the genome

The semilooper’s circular genome was 15,399 nucleotides in length. There are 37 sequence elements in total, comprising 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs) which include Cytochrome c oxidase, NADH dehydrogenase, Cytochrome B, ATPase, and two rRNA genes with 22 tRNA genes, and a control region. Every gene having an average gene length of 395 bp; the maximum and minimum gene lengths were 1749 and 63 bp, respectively (Fig 1). The mitochondrial genome of C. acuta was sequenced, and its molecular and phylogenetic features were studied in this work. In general, the mitogenome of insects are circular double -stranded molecule of 14–19 kb size which includes 37 genes: 13 PCGs, 2 rRNA genes and 22 tRNA genes [39, 40]. Gene content, order, and orientation are identical to those of reported noctuid mitogenomes and are typical of Lepidoptera [41, 42]. The semilooper’s circular mt genome measured 15,399 bp in size, slightly bigger than Trichoplusia ni (15,239 bp), which belongs to the same Plusiinae subfamily [43]. Similarly, the mt genome of green semilooper is closely related to the other defoliator pests infesting onions, such as S. exigua (15,365 bp) and S. litura (15,374 bp) [44, 45]. C. acuta is the third insect pest from the Plusiinae subfamily to have its whole mt genome sequenced after T. ni [43] and Macdunnoughia hybrida [42].

Fig 1

Mitochondrial genome map of Chrysodeixis acuta.

From outer to inner, the 1st circle shows the gene map (PCGs, rRNA, tRNAs & CR) and tRNA genes are abbreviated by one letter symbols according to the IUPAC-IUB single-letter amino acid codes. The 2nd circle shows the GC content and the 3rd shows GC skew calculated as (G-C)/ (G+C). GC content and GC skew are plotted as the deviation from the average value of the entire sequence.

Protein-coding genes (PCGs)

The mt genome of C. acuta has 13 genes coding protein scattered in a circular chromosome. These PCGs contain three cytochrome c oxidase (cox1, cox2, and cox3 genes), seven NADH dehydrogenase (nad1, nad2, nad3, nad4, nad5, nad6, and nad4l genes), one cytochrome B (cytB gene), and two ATPase (atp6 and atp8 genes) (Table 1). The H-strand included nine of the 13 PCGs (cox1, cox2, cox3, nad2, nad3, nad6, atp6, atp8, and cytB), whereas the L-strand had the remaining four (nad1, nad4, nad4l, and nad5). In C. acuta, four start codons (ATA, ATT, ATG, and ATC) were found. Seven genes (cox2, cox3, atp6, nad1, nad4, nad4l, and cytB) adopted ATG as the start codons, 3 genes (cox1, atp8 and nad5) used ATT, two (nad2 and nad6) used ATA, while ATC by single gene (nad3). Nine PCGs employed the TAA termination codon (cox3, atp6, atp8, nad1, nad3, nad4l, nad5, nad6, and cytB). The incomplete termination codon T was found in four genes: cox1, cox2, nad2, and nad4 (Table 1). Table 2 summarizes the values for the relative synonymous codon use (RSCU) and amino acid usage in the PCGs of C. acuta. Phenylalanine (Phe, F), Leucine (Leu, L), Isoleucine (Ile, I), Asparagine (Asn, N), and Serine (Ser, S) were found to be the five most commonly occurring amino acids, whereas Cysteine (Cys, C), and Arginine (Arg, R) were found to be the rarest (Table 2). The protein-coding genes are found scattered on both heavy and light strands, covering 71.93% of the total mt genome of C. acuta, and—11,077 bp long. These PCGs include cytochrome c oxidase, NADH dehydrogenase, Cytochrome B, and ATPase, commonly found in most insect species belonging to Lepidopteran order [21, 46–48].

Table 1

Summary table for characteristics of the complete mitogenome of Chrysodeixis acuta.

Name	Start position	Stop position	Strand	Length	Intergenic Spacers	Anticodon	Start codon	stop codon
trnM	1	68	+	68		atg
trnI	69	135	+	67	0	atc
trnQ	133	201	-	69	-2	caa
nad2	276	1149	+	874	74		ata	t
trnW	1261	1327	+	67	111	tga
trnC	1320	1384	-	65	-7	tgc
trnY	1386	1450	-	65	1	tac
cox1	1443	2988	+	1546	-7		att	t
trnL2	2989	3055	+	67	0	tta
cox2	3056	3737	+	682	0		atg	t
trnK	3738	3808	+	71	0	aag
trnD	3818	3886	+	69	9	gac
atp8	3887	4048	+	162	0		att	taa
atp6	4042	4719	+	678	-6		atg	taa
cox3	4730	5515	+	786	10		atg	taa
trnG	5521	5585	+	65	5	gga
nad3	5595	5939	+	345	9		atc	taa
trnA	5939	6003	+	65	-1	gca
trnR	6004	6066	+	63	0	cga
trnN	6067	6133	+	67	0	aac
trnS1	6137	6202	+	66	3	agc
trnE	6203	6268	+	66	0	gaa
trnF	6298	6364	-	67	29	ttc
nad5	6365	8113	-	1749	0		att	taa
trnH	8114	8179	-	66	0	cac
nad4	8252	9590	-	1339	72		atg	t
nad4l	9597	9887	-	291	6		atg	taa
trnT	9890	9955	+	66	2	aca
trnP	9956	10020	-	65	0	cca
nad6	10028	10561	+	534	7		ata	taa
cytB	10581	11732	+	1152	19		atg	taa
trnS2	11735	11800	+	66	2	tca
nad1	11820	12758	-	939	19		atg	taa
trnL1	12760	12828	-	69	1	cta
rrnL	12808	14166	-	1359	-20
trnV	14215	14279	-	65	48	gta
rrnS	14280	15060	-	781	0
Control region	15061	15399	+	339	0

Table 2

Codon usage and relative synonymous codon usage (RSCU) within Chrysodeixis acuta mitochondrial genome.

Codon	Count	RSCU	Codon	Count	RSCU	Codon	Count	RSCU	Codon	Count	RSCU
UUU(F)	26.3	1.92	UCU(S)	10.2	3.3	UAU(Y)	14.2	1.88	UGU(C)	2.3	2
UUC(F)	1.2	0.08	UCC(S)	0.6	0.2	UAC(Y)	0.9	0.12	UGC(C)	0	0
UUA(L)	35.4	5.27	UCA(S)	4.9	1.59	UAA(*)	0.7	2	UGA(W)	7.1	1.96
UUG(L)	0.6	0.09	UCG(S)	0.1	0.02	UAG(*)	0	0	UGG(W)	0.2	0.04
CUU(L)	2.9	0.44	CCU(P)	6.5	2.69	CAU(H)	4.8	1.85	CGU(R)	1.4	1.33
CUC(L)	0	0	CCC(P)	0.8	0.32	CAC(H)	0.4	0.15	CGC(R)	0	0
CUA(L)	1.4	0.21	CCA(P)	2.4	0.99	CAA(Q)	4.7	1.91	CGA(R)	2.7	2.59
CUG(L)	0	0	CCG(P)	0	0	CAG(Q)	0.2	0.09	CGG(R)	0.1	0.07
AUU(I)	33.8	1.94	ACU(T)	6.4	2.24	AAU(N)	18.7	1.92	AGU(S)	2.4	0.77
AUC(I)	1	0.06	ACC(T)	0.4	0.14	AAC(N)	0.8	0.08	AGC(S)	0	0
AUA(M)	20	1.86	ACA(T)	4.6	1.62	AAA(K)	6.8	1.81	AGA(S)	6.5	2.11
AUG(M)	1.5	0.14	ACG(T)	0	0	AAG(K)	0.7	0.19	AGG(S)	0	0
GUU(V)	5.8	1.99	GCU(A)	6.5	2.67	GAU(D)	4.7	1.94	GGU(G)	4.8	1.22
GUC(V)	0.1	0.03	GCC(A)	0.2	0.06	GAC(D)	0.2	0.06	GGC(G)	0.2	0.06
GUA(V)	5.1	1.75	GCA(A)	2.9	1.21	GAA(E)	5.4	1.87	GGA(G)	9.2	2.36
GUG(V)	0.7	0.24	GCG(A)	0.2	0.06	GAG(E)	0.4	0.13	GGG(G)	1.4	0.35

Average codons = 284

Insect species like Ctenoplusia albostriata [49], Diachrysia nadeja [50], Trichoplusia ni [43], Laelia suffusa [51], Cerura menciana [22] and Eudocima salaminia [48] all have the same genes with little differences in size and location. The start codons for the cox1 gene in lepidopteran insects are not uniform [52], which has been widely debated and has long been a source of contention [53]. The canonical start codon ATN—was used to initiate all of C. acuta’s protein-coding genes. The initial codon for cox1 was ATT, instead of "CGA" utilized in several insect species [54]. In C. acuta, two termination codons were discovered. Four genes cox1, cox2, nad2, and nad4, used the incomplete termination codon "T"; nevertheless, other genes were terminated by TAA. Our findings are consistent with those of Liu et al. [55], Dai et al. [22], Dai et al. [56], Li et al. [57] Chen et al. [58] and Riyaz et al. [48] who also reported the presence of single "T" as a termination codon for the cox1 and cox2 genes in the majority of Lepidopteran species. This incomplete termination codon "T" in lepidopteran mt genes might get polyadenylated to TAA codon during translation [46, 47, 59]. Numerous studies have demonstrated that the nucleotides ‘A’ and ‘T’ are generally overrepresented in metazoan mitogenomes, which causes bias in the corresponding encoded amino acids [21]. Codons having ‘A’ or ‘T’ at the third prime position were found to be over used in this study when compared to other similar codons. For example, the valine codons GTC and GTG were rare, whereas GTT and GTA’s synonymous codons were prevalent (Table 2). In the mitogenome of Leucoma salicis [60] and Eucrate crenata [47] a similar tendency was observed. The pattern of codons for the frequently used amino acids like Phe, Leu, Ile, Asn and Ser of C. acuta are similar to most noctuoid mitogenomes [48, 61, 62].

Transfer RNAs (tRNA) and ribosomal RNAs (rRNA)

The mitochondrial genome of C. acuta had 22 tRNA genes strewn over the circular genome. From the total, 14 tRNAs were present within H- strand, whereas the rest 8 were present within L- strand (Fig 1 and Table 1). The 22 tRNAs’ aggregate sequence was 1,464 bp, 9.51% of the entire mt genome. Except for the trnS1 (AGN) gene, which codes for the serine (Ser, S) amino acid, the secondary structures of the remaining mt tRNA of C. acuta were predicted; all genes revealed the characteristic clover leaf shape (Fig 2). The two rRNA genes rrnL of 1359 bp and rrnS of 781 bp are found on the L- strand, accounting for 13.90% of the mt genome (Fig 1). The length of 22 transfer RNA genes in the C. acuta mt genome ranged from 63 bp (trnR) to 71 bp (trnK), which is similar with the mt genomes of L. suffusa [51], D. pyloalis [54], and C. menciana [22]. Except for trnS1 (AGN), which lacks the dihydrouridine (DHU) arm and forms a simple loop, all tRNA secondary structures resembled the conventional clover leaf shape (Fig 2). Many insect mitogenomes showed similar results, including Bombyx mori [63], Actias selene [64], Spodoptera frugiperda [65], Spodoptera litura [45], Chrysochroa fulgidissima [66], B. zonata [67] Idioscopus nitidulus [68] Acronicta rumicis [69] and Eudocima salamina [48].

Fig 2

Predicated secondary clover-leaf structures for the 22 tRNA genes of Chrysodeixis acuta.

The tRNAs are labled with abbreviation of their corresponding amino acids below each tRNA gene structure. Arms of tRNAs (clockwise from top) are the amino acid acceptor arm, TYC arm, the anticodon arm, and dihydrouridine (DHU) arm.

There was an unusual (G-U and U-U) mismatch pair in the tRNA genes. Ten of the tRNA genes were found to contain 14 G-U mismatches in their secondary structures, forming a weak bondThe amino acid acceptor stems of tRNALeu(UUR), tRNAAla, tRNASer1, and tRNASer2 contained five U-U mismatches (Fig 2). Sun et al. [60] and Riyaz et al. [48] also observed a similar trend in L. salicis and E. salamina respectively. The control (AT-rich) region varies in size across members of the Noctuidae family, although it includes comparable sequence components in most species. In many Lepidopteran species, the ATAGA motif found at the start of the control region is a conserved motif sequence. Similarly, Li et al. [51], Dai et al. [22], Chen et al. [69] and Liu et al. [70] have also reported the ATAGA motif in the control region followed by the Poly-T stretch and microsatellite A/T repeats elements along with Poly-A stretch at the end of the control region.

Overlapping and intergenic spacer regions

The whole circular mitochondrial genome map of C. acuta has six overlapping sections ranging from 1 to 20 bp with a total length of 43 bp. The overlapping area between the trnL and rrnL genes is the longest one measuring 20 bp. Other overlapping regions include 7 bp between trnC and trnW, cox1 and trnY; 6 bp between atp6 and atp8, 2 bp between trnQ and trnI, and a single base pair between trnA and nad3 genes (Table 1). The mt genome of C. acuta comprises 18 intergenic spacer sequences, ranged 1 to 111 bp which constituted a total 427 bp. The longest intergenic spacer was 111 bp, present between nad2 and trnW is an A/T rich region. The largest intergenic spacer sequences are 74 bp and 72 bp situated between trnQ and nad2 genes, and trnH and nad4 genes respectively. The other intergenic spacers are less than 50 bp size (Table 1). The spacer region between trnS2 (UCN) and nad1 includes two motifs ‘ATACTAA’ and ‘TACTAAAAATAAAT’ of 7 and 14 bp respectively (Fig 3). The intergenic spacer region between the genes trnS2 (UCN) and nad1 includes the ’ATACTAA’ motif, which is commonly present in most lepidopteran species; even though the size of the intergenic spacer region varies [52, 69–71]. This spacer region is generally considered a constitutive synapo-morphic feature of the lepidopteran mitochondrial genomes because this region won’t present in non-lepidopteran insects species [72]. The similar motif were located in the Dysgonia stuposa [73], L. salicis [60], C. menciana [22] and Ctenoptilum vasava [52]. The motif ’TACTAAAAATAAAT’ was located in the intergenic spacer region between the genes trnS2 (UCN) and nad1 of the C. acuta, were also common in lepidopteran species (Fig 3). However, this motif was not reported in other than lepidopteran families.

Fig 3

Alignment of the intergenic spacer region between trnS2 (UCN) and nad1 of several lepidopteran insects of Plusiinae subfamily.

ATACTAA motif is underlined and the TACTAAAAATAAAT is shaded.

The control region

The control region (AT-rich) of C. acuta mt genome comprises 339 bp is positioned between rrnS and trnM genes. It is one of the longest mitochondrial non-coding region which cover about 2.20% of the whole mitochondrial genome and contains 93.51% AT nucleotides. There have been no reports of noticeable extensive repeats in the AT-rich control region. However, many short repetitive sequences are distributed across the region, including the ATAGA motif, followed by a 19-bp Poly-T stretch, a microsatellite-like (AT)10, and a 9-bp poly-A stretch downstream of trnM. (Fig 4). Similar sequence elements were found in the mitochondrial genomes of lepidopteran species, Laelia suffusa [51], Cerura menciana [22], Hestina persimilis and Hestinalis nama [74].

Fig 4

Features presents A+T rich region of Chrysodeixis acuta.

The ATAGA motif is shaded, Poly-T strand is underlined, Poly-A stretch is double underlined; the single microsatellite A/T repeat sequence is dotted underlined.

The phylogenetic tree of thenoctuidae family comprising 55 Lepidoptera species based on 13 PCGs nucleotide sequence datasets constructed by utilizing Maximum Likelihood (ML), and Bayesian Inference (BI) methods. The phylogenetic tree, as shown in Fig 5, revealed that the mt genome of C. acuta taxonomic status was closest with T. ni (GenBank accession No. MK 714850), C. limbirena (GenBank accession No. KM 244665), and C. albostriata (GenBank accession No. MN 495624) from the same sub-family Plusiinae. Hadeninae, Noctuinae, Amphipyrinae, Plusiinae, and Heliothinae sub-families of the Noctuidae family are closely related. The sub-family of C. acuta, Plusiinae is closely related to the Heliothinae and Amphipyrinae. However, the Hadeninae and Noctuinae are sister groups from the same superfamily (Fig 5). According to the overall findings of the phylogenetic analysis, species that belong to the same family but different subfamilies are placed together.

Fig 5

Phylogenetic tree of 55 species from Noctuidae family species including Chrysodeixis acuta.

The analysis obtained from Bayseain Inference and Maximum Likelihood based on concatenated data of 13 PCGs genes. The numbers at nodes indicate ML bootstrap values probabilities. Accession numbers are given for species obtained from GenBank.

The phylogenetic analysis discovered that C. acuta is most closely correlated to the cabbage looper, Trichoplusia ni, from the same subfamily Plusiinae, notably in mt genome similarities, 13 PCGs, 22 tRNAs, and two rRNAs. However, the size of the control region appears to be different [43]. The five sub-families comprising Hadeninae, Noctuinae, Amphipyrinae, Plusiinae, and Heliothinae from the Noctuidae family are closely related. The sub-family of C. acuta, Plusiinae is closely related to the Heliothinae and Amphipyrinae. However, the Hadeninae and Noctuinae are sister groups from the same superfamily (Fig 5). The phylogenetic tree confirmed that the previously characterized species C. albostriata [49], D. nadeja [50], and T. ni [43] belonged to the sub-family Plusiinae and are related to the C. acuta which confirms that the C. acuta also belonged to the Plusiinae sub-family. The phylogenetic relationships were reconstructed based on the concentrated data of the 13 PCGs, which supports the traditional morphology-based view of the relationship within the Noctuidae family. The phylogenetic relationships were reconstructed based on the concentrated data of the 13 PCGs, which supports the traditional morphology-based view of the relationship within the Noctuidae family.

Nucleotide composition

The mitochondrial genomes of the insects generally reflect real strand discrimination in nucleotide compositions [75]. The strand dissimilarity is measured as the AT and GC-skews [30]. The J-strand displayed strand bias with negative GC-skew and positive AT-skew pattern (S1 Fig) in a comparative study of nucleotide percentages vs skewness of the 55 Noctuidae family members, including C. acuta. The relative synonymous codon usages (RUSC) were evaluated to identify the preference for a specific synonymous (Table 2). The codon usages pattern of C. acuta suggests that the two-fold and four-fold degenerate codons overuse the A/T at the third codon position (S2 Fig). Two-fold and four-fold degenerate codon usage was obviously A/T biased over G/C in the third position [76].

Gene evolution rate

For the analysis of gene evolution rate, the rate of non-synonymous substitution (Ka, pi modified), synonymous substitution (Ks, pi modified), and the Ka/Ks ratio, as well as the Jukes-Cantor adjusted Ka/Ks (JKa/JKs) ratio, of 13 PCGs from 55 mitogenome sequences from Noctuidae family species, including C. acuta was used. Based on synonymous and non-synonymous nucleotide substitution analysis, the Ka/Ks values of the 13 PCGs of 55 Noctuidae species ranged from 0.0463 to 1.0947 (Table 3). The Ka/Ks values of only two genes nad2 and cytB were more than one, 1.0947 and 1.0654, respectively, indicating the highest evolutionary rates. While cox1 recorded lowest (0.0463) among the 13 PCGs. Similarly, Jukes-Cantor adjusted Ka/Ks also showed that the cytB and nad2 had highest evolutionary rate with JKa/JKs values 2.0443 and 1.6206, respectively. However, cox1 and atp6 recorded the lowest JKa/JKs values of 0.0349 and 0.0916, respectively. Overall ratios of Ka/Ks and JKa/JKs for the genes cox1, cox2, atp6, nad3, nad4, and nad4L were less than 0.5, indicating that these genes in the Noctuidae family evolved under purifying selects (S3 Fig). Though this gene has a relatively slow evolutionary rate, this could be used as the candidate barcoding marker for species identification in Noctuidae family. Nucleotide substitution in the mitogenome indicates the evolution at the molecular level [77]. Nucleotide substitution was previously thought to represent a directional bias between various genes in the mitochondrial genome of insects, according to previous research by Cameron [39].

Table 3

Rates of non-synonymous substitutions (Ka, pi modified), synonymous substitutions (Ks, pi modified) and the Ka/Ks ratio as well as Jukes-Cantor adjusted Ka/Ks (JKa/JKs) ratio in each PCG of 55 mitogenome sequences of Noctuidae family species including Chrysodeixis acuta from this study.

Protein-coding genes	Rates of non-synonymous substitutions (Ka)	Rates of synonymous substitutions (Ks)	Ka/Ks ratio	Rates of non-synonymous substitutions Jukes-Cantor adjusted J(Ka)	Rates of synonymous substitutions Jukes-Cantor adjusted J(Ks)	JKa / JKs ratio
nad2	0.33444	0.30550	1.09473	0.65868	0.40644	1.62061
cox1	0.01457	0.31435	0.04635	0.01479	0.42349	0.03492
cox2	0.05820	0.33466	0.17391	0.11659	0.46371	0.25143
atp8	0.15659	0.21912	0.71463	0.18637	0.26938	0.69185
atp6	0.0402	0.3316	0.121261	0.04187	0.4573	0.0916
cox3	0.27558	0.37520	0.73449	0.76770	0.55221	1.39023
nad3	0.10409	0.38134	0.27296	0.18199	0.56431	0.32250
nad6	0.27856	0.28836	0.96601	0.43713	0.37632	1.16159
nad5	0.1939	0.2619	0.740482	0.45273	0.3326	1.3611
nad4	0.04544	0.24551	0.18508	0.04748	0.30501	0.15567
nad4L	0.10840	0.24782	0.43741	0.17589	0.31478	0.55877
cytB	0.40883	0.38370	1.06549	1.15181	0.56342	2.04432
nad1	0.19112	0.26457	0.72238	0.49746	0.33763	1.47339

Conclusions

Many agricultural pests and economically important insects are found in the order Lepidoptera. Most economically important defoliator pests belong to the Noctuidae family. The mitogenome was utilised to elucidate the evolutionary position of Lepidoptera at several taxon levels, especially for Noctuoidea [78]. The mitogenomes of the Noctuidae family have been studied extensively; however, very few reports are available on the Plusiinae subfamily. The first complete mt genome sequence of Chyrsodeixis acuta is revealed in this work. The circular mitogenome of C. acuta is 15,399 bp length and contains 37 sequence elements. It comprises 13 protein-coding genes, ATPase genes, Cytochrome B gene, cytochrome c oxidase gene, NADH dehydrogenase gene, two ribosomal RNA genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, and a control region. The complete mt genome adds to the genetic richness of this species and elucidates crucial information for further evolutionary and phylogenetic studies of the Noctuidae family. In addition, other potential pests of the genus Chrysodeixis, such as Chrysodeixis chalcites, Chrysodeixis eriosoma, and Chrysodeixis includens, infesting various crops, would benefit from the mitochondrial genomic organization of Chyrsodeixis acuta.

AT% vs AT-skew and GC% vs GC-skew in the 63 Noctuidae family species including Chrysodeixis acuta from this study.

Values are calculated on J-strands for full length of mt genomes. The X-axis provides the skews values, while the Y axis provides the A+T/G+C values. Names of species are colored according to their taxonomic placement.

(TIF)

Click here for additional data file.

The AT content percentage of 0-fold degenerate sites, 2-fold degenerate sites and 4-fold degenerate sites in each protein coding gene of 55 mitochondrial genome sequences of Noctuidae family species including C. acuta from this study.

The black line with short line on the top of each bar represents the standard deviation value (SD).

(TIF)

Click here for additional data file.

Ratio of non-synonymous substitutions (Ka, pi modified) & synonymous substitutions (Ks, pi modified) (Ka/Ks) as well as Jukes-Cantor adjusted (JKa/JKs) ratio in each PCG of 55 mitogenome sequences of Noctuidae family species including C. acuta from this study.

(TIF)

Click here for additional data file.

20 Jul 2022

4 Aug 2022

Reviewer comment

Reviewer 1

Comment 1: How many samples were selected? The stage of the larval? And the mitochondrial genome was sequenced only once?

Author Response: Laboratory reared fully grown fourth instar larvae of Chrysodeixis acuta was used for the mitogenome analysis. Single sample was sequenced. As per the reviewer’s suggestion, necessary changes has been made in the materials and methods section of the revised manuscript.

Comment 2: The quality of the figures is not good and need improvement.

Author Response: Quality of the figures are improved and included in the revised manuscript.

Comment 3: The scientific name of the species should be italicized and the format of references is inconsistent

Author Response: Scientific name of the species were italicized and the formatting of the references have been done as per the journal norms.

Comment 4: The English should be further improved

Author Response: As per the reviewer’s suggestion, necessary changes has been made in the revised manuscript.

Reviewer 2

Comment 1: I would only suggest a widening of literature references, also considering some more recent works that came out, and hence a deeper discussion.

Author Response: As per the reviewer’s suggestion, discussion section has been elaborated with recent publications in the revised manuscript.

Comment 2: Revise for minor typographical and grammatical errors.

Author Response: Both minor typographical and grammatical errors has been rectified in the revised manuscript.

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx

Click here for additional data file.

15 Aug 2022

Unfolding the mitochondrial genome structure of green semilooper (Chrysodeixis acuta Walker): an emerging pest of onion (Allium cepa L.)

PONE-D-22-12683R1

Dear Dr. SOUMIA P S,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Muhammad Faisal Shahzad, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

19 Aug 2022

PONE-D-22-12683R1

Unfolding the mitochondrial genome structure of green semilooper (Chrysodeixis acuta Walker): an emerging pest of onion (Allium cepa L.)

Dear Dr. P.S.:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org.

If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org.

Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access.

Kind regards,

PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff

on behalf of

Dr. Muhammad Faisal Shahzad

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE