Phylomitogenomic analyses strongly support the sister relationship of the Chaetognatha and Protostomia

Abstract

The phylum Chaetognatha (arrow worms) comprises a group of small marine predators that constitute a critical component of the zooplankton community throughout the world's oceans. Various phylogenetic affiliations have been proposed for the Chaetognatha, for which there are at least nine possible phylogenetic positions. Resolving the phylogenetic position of the chaetognaths is a key in understanding the fundamental developmental features of bilaterians. In comparison with the typical gene content of metazoan mitogenomes, two protein-coding genes (atp6 and atp8) are absent from all chaetognaths. The two mitogenomes sequenced from Sagitta crassa and Zonosagitta nagae in this study nevertheless contain two and four tRNA genes, respectively, in contrast to those of the other five chaetognaths reported where only one tRNA gene (trnMet) is present, thus invalidating the view that all chaetognath mitogenomes have a single tRNA gene. A conserved major gene order shared by all chaetognaths could be partially identified in many protostome mitogenomes, but not in any ancestral mitogenome gene arrangement of the four deuterostome groups. Phylogenetic analysis of the deduced amino acid sequences of protein-coding genes from 85 mitogenomes of 19 groups suggests the Chaetognatha to be a sister group to the protostomes, a result consistent with evidences from the developmental pattern and other molecular analyses.