Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Parasitology
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2024.1494204

Phylogeny and divergence time estimation of the subfamily Amphipsyllinae based on the Frontopsylla diqingensis mitogenome

Provisionally accepted
Pu Ju Pu Ju Xiaoxia Lin Xiaoxia Lin *Wenge Dong Wenge Dong *
  • Dali University, Dali, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Fleas are primarily parasite on small mammals and are important vectors of plague transmission. The subfamily Amphipsyllinae (Siphonaptera: Leptopsyllidae) consists of 182 species in 13 genera, distributed widely in the world. Only 2 species of Amphipsyllinae have been sequenced for complete mitogenomes to date. It hinders the taxonomy and evolutionary history studies of fleas. Here, we first sequenced the Frontopsylla diqingensis mitogenome and performed comparative mitogenomic analyses with the two others species (Frontopsylla spadix and Paradoxopsyllus custodis) in Amphipsyllinae available in the NCBI database. Amphipsyllinae evolutionary was comprehensively analyzed in terms of nucleotide composition, codon usage, nucleotide diversity, tRNA secondary structure, nucleotide skew, phylogeny tree and divergence time. Nucleotide diversity and tRNAs of 3 species of fleas of Amphipsyllinae have differences among different species. ENC-plot, neutrality curve, PR2 and COA analysis showed that the codon preference of Amphipsyllinae was influenced mainly by natural selection. For phylogenetic trees and divergence time of the Order Siphonaptera, our results showed that the PCG: (((Ceratophyllidae + Leptopsyllidae) + ((Vermipsyllidae + Hystrichopsyllidae) + Ctenophthalmidae)) + (Pulicidae + Pygiopsyllidae)); PCGRNA: ((((Ceratophyllidae + Leptopsyllidae) + ((Vermipsyllidae + Hystrichopsyllidae) + Ctenophthalmidae)) + Pulicidae) + Pygiopsyllidae). We concluded that Paradoxopsyllus custodis and Macrostylophora euteles from GenBank are the same species by phylogenetic trees and sequence alignment, and supported the monophyly of Amphipsyllinae. Amphipsyllinae diverged in the Cenozoic, approximately 73.37-40.32 Mya. Most species of the intraordinal divergence into extant lineages took place after the K-Pg boundary. The common ancestor of the extant order Siphonaptera diverged during the Cretaceous. Our findings supported Zhu et al (2015). This study provides new insights into the evolutionary history and taxonomy of the order Siphonaptera.

    Keywords: Amphipsyllinae, Mitogenome, Plague, phylogeny, divergence time

    Received: 15 Sep 2024; Accepted: 22 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Ju, Lin and Dong. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Xiaoxia Lin, Dali University, Dali, China
    Wenge Dong, Dali University, Dali, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.