Sequences and gene organization of the mitochondrial genomes of the liver flukes Opisthorchis viverrini and Clonorchis sinensis (Trematoda)

Opisthorchis viverrini and Clonorchis sinensis are important trematodes infecting humans and animals, belonging to the family Opisthorchiidae. In the present study, we sequenced the nearly complete mitochondrial (mt) DNA (mtDNA) sequences of O. viverrini from Laos, obtained the complete mtDNA sequences of C. sinensis from China and Korea, and revealed their gene annotations and genome organizations. The mtDNA sequences of O. viverrini, C. sinensis (China isolate), C. sinensis (Korea isolate) were 13,510, 13,879, and 13,877 bp in size, respectively. Each of the three mt genomes comprises 36 genes, consisting of 12 genes coding for proteins, two genes for rRNA, and 20 genes (O. viverrini) or 22 genes (C. sinensis) for tRNA. The gene content and arrangement are identical to that of Fasciola hepatica, and Paragonimus westermani, but distinct from Schistosoma spp. All genes are transcribed in the same direction and have a nucleotide composition high in T. The contents of A+T of the mt genomes were 59.39% for O. viverrini, 60.03% for C. sinensis (China isolate), and 59.99% for C. sinensis (Korea isolate). Phylogenetic analyses using concatenated amino acid sequences of the 12 protein-coding genes, with three different computational algorithms [maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian analysis], all revealed distinct groups with high statistical support, indicating that O. viverrini and C. sinensis represent sister taxa. These data provide additional novel mtDNA markers for studying the molecular epidemiology and population genetics of the two liver flukes and should have implications for the molecular diagnosis, prevention, and control of opisthorchiasis and clonorchiasis in humans and animals.