title: Comparative mitochondrial genomics toward exploring molecular markers in the medicinal fungus Cordyceps militaris.
abstract: Cordyceps militaris is a fungus used for developing health food, but knowledge about its intraspecific differentiation is limited due to lack of efficient markers. Herein, we assembled the mitochondrial genomes of eight C. militaris strains and performed a comparative mitochondrial genomic analysis together with three previously reported mitochondrial genomes of the fungus. Sizes of the 11 mitochondrial genomes varied from 26.5 to 33.9 kb mainly due to variable intron contents (from two to eight introns per strain). Nucleotide variability varied according to different regions with non-coding regions showing higher variation frequency than coding regions. Recombination events were identified between some locus pairs but seemed not to contribute greatly to genetic variations of the fungus. Based on nucleotide diversity fluctuations across the alignment of all mitochondrial genomes, molecular markers with the potential to be used for future typing studies were determined.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Chemistry, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China.|School of Life Sciences, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, China.
authors.forename: Shu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, China.
authors.forename: Ai-Jing
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Hao
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, China.
authors.forename: Yu-Xiang
authors.initials: YX
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Farm Product Storage and Freshening Institute, Shanxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030031, China.
authors.forename: Xiao-Yu
authors.initials: XY
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, China.
authors.forename: Yong-Jie
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D032661:Cordyceps / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics*; D005819:Genetic Markers; D014644:Genetic Variation; D054629:Genome, Mitochondrial; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods; D008928:Mitochondria / Q000235:genetics; D058889:Molecular Typing / Q000379:methods*; D016533:Mycological Typing Techniques / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D005819:Genetic Markers