Mitochondrial gene arrangement of the horseshoe crab Limulus polyphemus L: Conservation of major features among arthropod classes

Numerous complete mitochondrial DNA sequences have been determined for species within two arthropod groups, insects and crustaceans, but there are none for a third, the chelicerates. Most mitochondrial gene arrangements reported for crustacean and insect species are identical or nearly identical to that of Drosophila yakuba. Sequences across 36 of the gene boundaries in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of a representative chelicerate, Limulus polyphemus L., also reveal an arrangement like that of Drosophila yakuba. Only the position of the tRNA(Leu(UUR)) gene differs; in Limulus it is between the genes for tRNA(Leu(CUN)) and ND1. This positioning is also found in onychophorans, mollusks, and annelids, but not in insects and crustaceans, and indicates that tRNA(Leu(CUN))-tRNA(Leu(UUR))-ND1 was the ancestral gene arrangement for these groups, as suggested earlier. There are no differences in the relative arrangements of protein-coding and ribosomal RNA genes between Limulus and Drosophila, and none have been observed within arthropods. The high degree of similarity of mitochondrial gene arrangements within arthropods is striking, since some taxa last shared a common ancestor before the Cambrian, and contrasts with the extensive mtDNA rearrangements occasionally observed within some other metazoan phyla (e.g., mollusks and nematodes).