Complete mitochondrial genome sequence of of tarantula spider Brachypelma albiceps. Brachypelma albiceps

Brachypelma albiceps Pocock 1903, also known as the Mexican golden red rump tarantula, is one of the most popular tarantulas in the world. All the Brachypelma spiders in the world are cataloged in the Appendix II (CITES). In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) sequences of Brachypelma albiceps was sequenced, which generated 30,487,966 clean paired-end reads. The complete mitochondrial genome is a typical double-stranded circular molecule of 13,856 bp and a GC content of 32.84%, which is consistent with other published mitogenomes in spiders. The assembled Brachypelma albiceps mitogenome was annotated using the MITOS and able to resolve all mitochondrial genes, which consists of 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNAs, two ribosomal RNAs. The base composition is 29.65% for A, 37.50% for T, 10.05%for C, 22.79% for G, with the higher A+T contents (67.15%). The phylogenetic analysis, using 13 protein-coding genes of Brachypelma albiceps and 56 spider species, shows that Brachypelma albiceps is more closely related to Cyriopagopus schmidti and Cyriopagopus hainanus and nested in the Mygalomorphae clade. This is the first report of the mitochondrial genome in Brachypelma, which can be used for further analyses of Theraphosidae mitochondrial comparative genomics to improve the understanding of diverse spider species.