Pseudacanthops lobipes Genome sequencing and assembly

The genome of Pseudacanthops lobipes was sequenced using the Illumina NovaSeq platform with paired-end sequencing (PE150), generating 17,684,337 high-quality clean reads, equivalent to 5.3 Gb of data. The data quality was excellent, with Q20 and Q30 scores of 96.13% and 90.01%, respectively, and a GC content of 36.79%. After mitochondrial genome assembly, a circular genome of 15,385 bp in length was obtained, with a GC content of 23.46%. Annotation results revealed that the mitochondrial genome contains 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 tRNAs, and 2 rRNAs (Table 6), consistent with the typical conserved structure of insect mitochondrial genomes. All genes were arranged circularly along the genome, with forward and reverse coding genes following regular distribution patterns.Codon usage bias analysis showed significantly higher frequencies of the termination codon UAA (RSCU = 1.69) and the alanine codon GCU (RSCU = 1.75), suggesting that mitochondrial gene expression may be influenced by natural selection for translational efficiency. The overall AT content of the genome was 76.54% (AT skew = -0.012), with the protein-coding regions exhibiting an AT skew of -0.140, indicating a bias toward thymine (T) on the lagging strand. Ka/Ks analysis revealed that all PCGs had Ka/Ks values less than 1 (e.g., CYTB gene Ka/Ks = 0.104, p < 1e-180), indicating strong purifying selection acting on these genes.A maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree constructed from whole-genome sequence data showed that Pseudacanthops lobipes clustered closely with the reference species KX434843.1 (likely a closely related species). Synteny analysis (Mauve alignment) revealed a highly conserved genomic structure, with only a few regions exhibiting local rearrangements, supporting the stability of its taxonomic classification.This study provides valuable insights into the mitochondrial genome structure and evolutionary dynamics of Pseudacanthops lobipes, contributing to our understanding of its phylogeny.