Mitochondrial Genome of the Hermit Crab Coenobita lila (Anomura: Paguroidea) and Insights into Gene Rearrangements and Phylogeny of Anomura

Tinghao Yan1, Xiaoli Sun1,2, Jie Yang1, Gang Wang1, Yuhua Miao1, Yue Zhang1, Boping Tang1, Ge Ding3 and Daizhen Zhang1*

1Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Bioresources of Saline Soils, Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Coastal Wetland Bioresources and Environmental Protection, Jiangsu Synthetic Innovation Center for Coastal Bio-agriculture, Yancheng Teachers University, Yancheng 224051, China

2College of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, China

3Chemical and Biological Engineering College, Yancheng Institute of Technology, Yancheng 224003, China

Tinghao Yan and Xiaoli Sun contributed equally to the paper.

ABSTRACT

The complete mitochondrial genome of Coenobite lila was sequenced and annotated. It was 16,396 bp in length and contained 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes, 22 transfer RNA genes and a control region. Mitochondrial genome of C. lila, was with negative AT skew and positive GC skew. Ka / Ks of the 13 protein-coding genes indicated purifying selection. The replication-random loss and recombination model was used to explain the mechanism of gene rearrangement of 11 tRNAs and 2 PCGs in C. lila relative to pancrustaceans. Phylogenetic analysis using 13 protein-coding genes including 23 species of Anomura, 7 species of Brachyura and 1 outgroup showed that C. lila was in Coenobitidae family. The gene order of C. lila mitogenome underwent a large rearrangement.


Article Information

Received 28 February 2023

Revised 15 June 2024

Accepted 24 June 2024

Available online 08 November 2024

(early access)

Published 13 November 2025

Authors’ Contribution

All authors contributed to the study concept and design. Conceptualization: DZZ, BPT, and GD. Methodology: GW. Formal analysis and investigation: JY, YZ, and YHM. Writing and editing: THY and XLS and DZZ. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Key words

Coenobita lila, Gene rearrangement, Hermit crab, Mitogenome, Paguroidea, Phylogenetic analysis

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.17582/journal.pjz/20230228100248

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

0030-9923/2025/0006-2831 $ 9.00/00

Copyright 2025 by the authors. Licensee Zoological Society of Pakistan.

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).



Introduction

Mitochondrial genome is double-stranded closed-loop structure independent of nuclear chromosomes. In contrast to the light strand, the heavy strand of the mitochondrial genome has more G and less C (Simon et al., 1994). There is no intron sequence in mitochondrial genome with overlapped coding genes. The mitochondrial genome of metazoan is usually 14-20kb in length, which is mainly divided into four parts, including 13 PCGs (protein-coding genes), 22 tRNAs, 2 rRNAs and a control region (Boore, 1999). Mitochondrial genome has the characteristics of simple structure, maternal inheritance, rapid variation and gene rearrangement, which provides useful information for phylogenetic analysis (Fritzsch et al., 2006). Several models has been proposed to explain mitochondrial gene rearrangement, including replication-random loss, replication-non-random loss, recombination and tRNA mismatch mode (Lunt and Hyman, 1997; Moritz and Brown, 1987). Nowadays, complete mitochondrial genomes are increasingly used in population genetics, species identification, molecular evolution and phylogenetic research (Nie et al., 2022; Sun et al., 2022; Reding et al., 2021).

Paguroidea is one of the most abundant species groups in Anomura with more than 72 genuera and 1,100 species. Due to the high morphological and ecological diversity, the classification and phylogenetic relationship of Paguroidea have been controversial for a long time (Lemaitre and Mclaughlin, 2009). Coenobita lila was found to be a new species by morphological difference analysis and molecular data identification (Colín et al., 2023). It is widely distributed in the coastal waters of Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, and usually inhabits 100 meters from the coast, hiding between grasses or rocks, edge of rocks, mangroves or estuaries.

Preliminary studies focused on the morphological characteristics of C. lila, but a few focused on its molecular, biological characteristics and phylogenetic status. Besides, the classification of Paguroidea where C. lila is located has always been ambiguous (Tan et al., 2018; Li et al., 2020). Therefore, the mitochondrial genome of C. lila was sequenced, and the basic structure and phylogenetic tree of mitochondrial genome were deeply analysed in this study to explore the evolution of mitochondrial genome.

Materials and Methods

Sample collection, DNA extraction and sequencing

A sample of C. lila was collected from sand flat and stored at -80 ℃. Total DNA was extracted from the muscles using SQ Tissue DNA kit (Omega). The quality of the separated DNA was detected by 1% agarose gel electrophoresis, and sequenced by next-generation sequencing paired reads (Illumina NovaseqTM; Shanghai Origingene Bio-pharmTechnology Co. Ltd. China).

Sequence assembly, gene annotation and analysis

Getorganells (http://github.com/Kinggerm/GetOrganelle) was used to splice the read sequence for multiple iterations to obtain the preliminary assembly results. Clean data without sequencing adapters were adjusted with Pilon v1.23 and de novo assembled by the NOVOPlasty 2.7.2 software. Finally, the mitochondrial genome sequence was obtained based on the reference genome mitochondrial scaffold start position and direction. In total, 37 genes were annotated using MITOS WebServer (http://mitos.bioinf.uni-leipzig.de/index.py) and the codon usage of PCGs was computed using the MEGA 7.0 software (Kumar et al., 2016; Bernt et al., 2013). We used OGDRAW (https://chlorobox.mpimp-golm.mpg.de/OGDraw.html) to draw the genome map. The skewness of nucleotide composition was analysed according to the following formulas: AT skew [(A-T)/(A + T)] and GC skew [(G-C)/(G + C)] (Perna and Kocher, 1995). The Ka / Ks values of each pair of homologous genes were calculated using KaKs_Calculator 2.0 through ParaAT and Mafft (Wang et al., 2010; Rozewicki et al., 2019).

Phylogenetic analysis and gene rearrangement

The phylogenetic relationship was reconstructed using 13 PCGs of 31 species (23 Anomura species, 7 Brachyura species and 1 outgroup) with Pteronarcys princeps as outgroup. Gblocks was used to multiple sequence alignment (Gerard and Jose, 2007). Maximum likelihood (ML) analysis was performed using RAxML 8.2.12, and the best amino acid substitution model selected by Prottest 3.4.2 (Posada, 2011). Bootstrap analysis (1000 replicates) was used to evaluate the relative support level for ML analysis (Sitnikova, 1996). Gene rearrangment was analysed with replication-random loss and recombination models.

Results and Discussion

Genome composition and structure

The complete mitochondrial genome of C. lila was 16,396 bp in length (Fig. 1). Mitochondrial data was deposited in GenBank with the accession No. OP645220. It comprised 13 PCGs, 22 tRNAs, 2 rRNAs and a control region (Table I). The overall nucleotide composition was A (26.6%), T (36.5%), G (21.7%) and C (15.2%). The GC content was 36.9 %, which was similar to that of C. brevimanus (35.0%) and other hermit crabs (Zhang et al., 2021; Hickerson and Cunningham, 2000). Additionally, the AT-skew was appreciably negative (-0.157), reflecting a higher occurrence of Ts to As, and its GC-skew (0.176) was positive indicating a higher content of Gs than Cs.

 

Table I. The mitochondrial genome features of Coenobita lila.

Genes

Position

Length

(bp)

Amino acid

Start/Stop condon

Anticodon

Intergenic region

Strand

From

To

cox1

1

1539

1539

512

ATG/TAA

-

H

trnL1

1535

1598

64

CTA

-5

H

cox2

1606

2295

690

229

ATG/TAG

7

H

trnK

2304

2368

65

AAA

8

H

trnM

2376

2443

68

ATG

7

H

trnI

2454

2519

66

ATC

10

H

nad2

2574

3587

1014

337

ATT/TAA

54

H

trnD

3574

3638

65

GAC

-14

H

atp8

3639

3797

159

52

ATT/TAG

0

H

atp6

3794

4465

672

223

ATA/TAA

-4

H

cox3

4465

5256

792

263

ATG/TAG

-1

H

trnR

5276

5338

63

CGA

19

H

trnN

5338

5402

65

AAC

-1

H

trnE

5410

5475

66

GAA

7

H

trnF

5478

5543

66

TTC

2

L

nad5

5553

7266

1714

571

ATT/T

9

L

trnH

7270

7335

66

CAC

3

L

nad4

7432

8772

1341

446

ATG/TAA

96

L

nad4l

8766

9068

303

100

ATG/TAA

-7

L

trnT

9071

9135

65

ACA

2

H

nad6

9155

9665

510

169

ATA/TGA

19

H

cob

9666

10799

1134

377

ATA/TGA

0

H

trnS2

10798

10862

65

TCA

-2

H

trnP

10862

10928

67

CCA

-1

L

nad1

10930

11853

924

307

ATA/TAG

1

L

16S

11939

13258

1320

85

L

trnV

13262

13328

67

GTA

3

L

12S

13326

14120

795

-3

L

trnS1

15481

15546

66

AGA

1360

L

trnA

15549

15613

65

GCA

2

L

nad3

15628

15960

333

110

ATT/TAA

14

L

trnG

15979

16044

66

GGA

18

L

trnL2

16048

16112

65

TTA

3

L

trnY

16112

16178

67

TAC

-1

H

trnW

16183

16251

69

TGA

4

L

trnQ

16256

16323

68

CAA

4

L

trnC

16327

16394

68

TGC

3

L

 

PCGs and codon usage

The total length of PCGs in mitogenome of C. lila was 11,113 bp. Eight PCGs (nad6, cob, cox1, cox2, nad2, atp8, atp6 and cox3) were encoded on the H-strand, while the remaining five PCGs (nad3, nad1, nad4l, nad4 and nad5) were encoded on the L-strand (Table I). The start codons were similar to invertebrate mitochondrial genomes (Xu et al., 2016), and five PCGs (cox1, cox2, cox3, nad4 and nad4l) started from the ATG, four PCGs (nad2, atp8, nad5 and nad3) started from the ATT and four PCGs (atp6, nad6, cob, and nad1) started from the ATA. Six PCGs (cox1, nad2, atp6, nad4, nad4l and nad3) were terminated with TAA, four PCGs (cox2, atp8, cox3 and nad1) with TAG, two (cob and nad6) with TGA and one (nad5) with a incomplete termination codon T (Table I). The existence of incomplete termination codons was a common phenomenon in mitochondrial genes (Gong et al., 2017; Hamasaki et al., 2017). One explanation for this phenomenon was that the TAA end was produced by post-transcriptional polyadenylation (Honarmand and Shoubridge, 2020).

Totally, 13 PCGs of the mitogenome totally encoded 3696 amino acids. The number of codons varied from 52 (atp8) to 571 (nad5) (Table I). The most frequently used amino acids were Leu (15.8%) and Ile (11.0%), and the least common amino acids were Cys (1.1%), Trp (1.6%), and Met (2.2%). The RSCU (relative synonymous codon usage) value of the 13 PCGs for the third positions was shown in Figure 2. The usage of the two most frequent amino acids (Ile and Leu) were ATT and TTA, biased toward in A and T, while Cys, Trp and Met with low frequency were rich in G and T. The AT content of 13 PCGs was 61.2 %, and the AT skewness and GC skewness were -0.219 and 0.014, indicating that the species preferred T to A and G to C (Table II).

Transfer RNAs and ribosomal RNAs

The C. lila mitogenome contained 22 tRNAs genes, and the length of tRNA genes ranged from 63 (trn-Arg) to 69 bp (trn-Trp) with the total length 1452 bp (Tables I, II). Similar to the AT skew and GC skew of PCGs, its AT skew was negative (-0.014) and GC skew was positive (0.119), respectively (Table II). The two rRNA genes were identified on the L-strand in C. lila mitogenome, with the 12S rRNA located between D-loop and trn-Val, and the 16S rRNA located between trn-Val and nad1. The length of 12S rRNA was 795 bp and the 16S rRNA was 1320 bp. The AT-skew and GC-skew of rRNAs were 0.110 and -0.039, indicating that more As and Cs than Ts and Gs in rRNAs (Table II).

 

Table II. Composition and skewness of Coenobita lila mitogenome.

Length

(bp)

A

(%)

T

(%)

G

(%)

C

(%)

A+T

(%)

AT- skew

GC-skew

Mitogenome

16396

26.6

36.5

21.7

15.2

63.1

-0.157

0.176

cox1

1539

20.7

40.5

23.9

14.9

61.2

-0.323

0.229

cox2

690

21.7

39.7

24.5

14.1

61.5

-0.292

0.271

atp8

159

28.9

39.0

22.0

10.1

67.9

-0.148

0.373

atp6

672

20.1

41.8

21.0

17.1

61.9

-0.351

0.102

cox3

792

20.2

40.3

22.9

16.7

60.5

-0.332

0.157

nad3

333

29.7

30.6

14.4

25.2

60.4

-0.015

-0.272

nad1

924

26.8

32.1

16.9

24.1

59.0

-0.089

-0.177

nad5

1714

31.0

30.5

14.3

24.2

61.5

0.008

-0.258

nad4

1341

29.0

30.4

16.3

24.3

59.4

-0.024

-0.199

nad4l

303

26.7

32.3

15.5

25.4

59.1

-0.095

-0.242

nad6

498

20.1

44.4

22.9

12.7

64.5

-0.377

0.288

cob

1134

19.4

41.3

22.0

17.4

60.7

-0.360

0.117

nad2

1014

17.5

46.3

21.4

14.9

63.7

-0.452

0.179

tRNAs

1452

32.4

33.3

19.2

15.1

65.8

-0.014

0.119

rRNAs

2115

37.9

30.4

15.3

16.5

68.2

0.110

-0.039

PCGs

11113

23.9

37.3

19.7

19.1

61.2

-0.219

0.014

 

 

Gene order of mitogenome

The gene order of C. lila mitogenome underwent a large rearrangement compared with its ancestor (pancontinental crustaceans) (Boore et al. 1998) (Fig. 3). In summary, six gene clusters dramatically differed from the typical order, involving eleven tRNAs (L1, L2, G, A, S1, P, I, Q, M, W and Y), and two PCGs (nad2 and nad3). The gene cox1- cox2- K- D- atp8- atp6- cox3- R- N- E- F- nad5- H- nad4- nad4l- T- nad6- cob- S2- nad1- 16S- V- 12S- C were not rearrangement, which was the same as that of the ancestral crustaceans. In these six gene clusters, the I- Q- M- nad2 cluster was split into two parts, with Q being transferred to the end of the linear mitochondrial genome. Another (I, M and nad2) was transferred downstream of K. The W- C- Y cluster order became the Y- W- C order, and L1 moved between cox1 and cox2. When a single P moved downstream from T to S2, the G- nad3- A- S1 cluster moved from the cox3 of the heavy strand to the CR downstream of the heavy strand. A single L2 moved to the position between the S1- A- nad3- G cluster and the Y- W- Q- C cluster downstream of CR forming a large-scale rearrangement region.

 

Here, we used replication-random loss and recombination models to explain the mitochondrial genome rearrangement of C. lila. First, one gene cluster underwent a complete copy to form one dimer block (I- Q- M). Continuous copies were followed by random loss of duplicate genes, I- Q- M- I- Q- M (underline represents the deleted gene), and then a new gene block (Q- M- I) was formed. Tandem repeats followed by random loss have been widely used to explain this type of translocation of mitochondrial genes (Gong et al., 2019; Shi et al., 2015; Chai et al., 2017). Therefore, we determined that the repeat-random loss model was the most likely explanation for the rearrangement of this gene block. Subsequently, the M- I- nad2 block moved to the junction of K and D. In the second step, seven genes or gene blocks were translocated. L1 was moved to the junction of cox1 and cox2, L2 was moved to the middle of nad2 and W, and then Y was moved to the downstream of L2. The gene cluster G- nad3- A and gene S1 moved to between CR and Q and changed to S1-A-nad3-G. At the same time, P moved to the middle of S2 and nad1, and Q moved to the middle of W and C. Moreover, restructuring events seemed to explain these translocations and the final gene arrangement of mitochondrial genome in C. lila.

Ka/ Ks ratio

The ratio of Ka/ Ks represents the ratio between non-synonymous mutations (Ka) and synonymous mutations (Ks) of the two protein-coding genes, which determines whether there is selective pressure on the protein-coding gene (Hurst, 2002). In the study, the calculated Ka/ Ks values of the 13 PCGs of the Anomura were all less than 1 (Fig. 4), suggesting the presence of purification selection. The ratio of atp8 was the largest, ranging from 0.056 to 0.920, indicating that atp8 faced the least pressure. This was consistent with the results of C. clypeatus (Colin et al., 2022). On the contrary, the evolutionary selection pressure on atp6 was different from that on atp8, where the evolutionary pressure was high.

 

Phylogenetic analysis and gene rearrangement patterns

In order to analyse the phylogenetic status of C. lila in Anomura, we constructed a phylogenetic tree (ML) based on 13 PCGs of 30 species with P. princeps as the outgroup (Table III, Fig. 5). The results showed that all 23 species of Anomura and 7 species of Brachyura were clustered together separately. And 9 superfamily were monophyletic groups except for the Paguroidea. Paguroidea was paraphyletic with Paguroidae group and Coenobitidae + Diogenidae group, which was consistent with the previous research (Tan et al., 2018; Li et al., 2020). And C. lila was clustered in Coenobitidae family.

 

Table III. List of 31 mitogenome data in this paper.

Species

Length(bp)

Accession No.

Superfamily: Paguroidea

Family: Diogenidae

Dardanus arrosor

16,592

NC_060631

Dardanus aspersus

16,916

MW715812

Clibanarius infraspinatus

16,504

NC_025776

Family: Coenobitidae

Birgus latro

16,411

NC_045091

Coenobita rugosus

16,433

MN030161

Coenobita lila

16,396

OP645220

Coenobita variabilis

16,421

KY352236

Coenobita brevimanus

16.393

MN030160

Superfamily: Hippoidea

Family: Albuneidae

Stemonopa insignis

15,596

KY352240

Superfamily: Galatheoidea

Family: Porcellanidae

Petrolisthes haswelli

15,348

NC_025572

Family: Galatheidae

Munida gregaria

16,326

NC_030255

Family: Munidopsidae

Munidopsis lauensis

17,483

MH717895

Munidopsis verrilli

17,636

MH717896

Superfamily: Paguroidea

Family: Paguridae

Pagurus longicarpus

15,630

AF150756

Pagurus similis

17,100

NC_057304

Pagurus nigrofascia

15,423

NC_042412

Superfamily: Lithodoidea

Family: Lithodidae

Paralithodes brevipes

16,303

NC_021458

Paralithodes platypus

16,883

NC_042240

Paralithodes camtschaticus

16,720

NC_020029

Superfamily: Lomoidea

Family: Lomidae

Lomis hirta

17,239

KY352239

Superfamily: Chirostyloidea

Family: Kiwaidae

Kiwa tyleri

16,865

NC_034927

Family: Chirostylidae

Gastroptychus rogeri

16,504

KY352238

Gastroptychus investigatoris

16,423

KY352237

Superfamily: Xanthoidea

Family: Oziidae

Epixanthus frontalis

15,993

MF457404

Superfamily: Pilumnoidea

Family: Pilumnidae

Pilumnus vespertilio

16,222

MF457402

Table continued on next column...........

Species

Length(bp)

Accession No.

Superfamily: Ocypodoidea

Family: Ocypodidae

Cranuca inversa

15,677

MF457405

Tubuca capricornis

15,629

MF457401

Tubuca polita

15,672

MF457400

Superfamily: Grapsoidea

Family: Gecarcinidae

Cardisoma carnifex

15,597

NC_039105

Family: Grapsidae

Pachygrapsus marmoratus

15,406

MF457403

Superfamily: Plecoptera

Family: Pteronarcyidae

Pteronarcys princeps

16,004

NC_006133

 

 

According to the gene rearragement of all the 30 species, 13 gene rearragement patterns (A-M) were defined. Mitochondrial gene rearrangements were mainly divided into three main forms: Shuffling, translocation and inversion. In general, every family of Anomura had its own unique arrangement type, such as Lithodidae (A), Munidopsidae (D), Galatheidae (E), Porcellanidae (F), Chirostylidae and Lomidae (G), Kiwaidae (H), Albuneidae (I), Coenobitidae (J) except for Paguridae (B and C) and Diogenidae (J and K). In all the gene rearrangement patterns of Anomura (A-K), we found that three gene clusters were conserved: cox2-trnK, atp8-atp6-cox3-trnR-trnN, trnP-nad1. Paguroidea was divided into two independent clades in the phylogenetic tree. In addition, these two clades had five different patterns in gene rearrangement patterns. Coenobitidae+Diogenidae group was clustered together, and except for D. aspersus, the gene rearrangement patterns of the other seven species were the same, while the gene rearrangement patterns of the three species in Paguridae were different. This indicated that gene rearrangement might be used in the study of systematic evolution of Anomura.

Conclusion

This study reported the complete mitochondrial genome of C. lila. It was 16,396 bp in length and contained 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes, 22 transfer RNA genes and a control region. Mitochondrial genome of C. lila was with negative AT skew and positive GC skew. Ka/Ks of the 13 protein-coding genes indicated purifying selection. The phylogenetic tree provided a certain reference for the reclassification of Paguroidea. Mitochondrial genome characteristics and gene rearrangement patterns might be used in the study of systematic evolution of Anomura.

Declarations

Acknowledgments

The work was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (32070526) and sponsored by “Qing Lan Project” and “333 Project”.

Funding

The work was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (32070526).

IRB approval

The research work was approved by Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Bioresources of Saline Soils, Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Coastal Wetland Bioresources and Environmental Protection, Jiangsu Synthetic Innovation Center for Coastal Bio-agriculture, Yancheng Teachers University, Yancheng, China.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in NCBI (Accession number: OP645220).

Statement of conflict of interest

The authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

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