• Korean Journal of Ichthyology
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.226-239
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• 2021

Sebastes minor, Sebastes trivittatus, Sebastes owstoni, and Sebastes steindachneri are indigenous fish species inhabiting the central part of the East Sea, Korea. In order to understand the molecular evolution of these four rockfishes, we sequenced the complete mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) of S. minor and S. trivittatus. To further analyze the phylogeny of Sebastes species, the mitogenomes of 16 rockfishes were comparatively investigated. The complete mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) nucleotide sequences of S. minor and S. trivittatus were 16,408 bp and 16,409 bp in length, respectively. A total of 37 genes were found in mtDNA of S. minor and S. trivittatus, including 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes, and 22 transfer RNA genes, which exhibited similar characters with other Sebastes species in the East Sea, Korea. In addition, we detected a conserved motif "ATGTA" in the control region of the four Sebastes species, but no tandem repeat units. Comparative analyses of the congeneric mitochondrial genomes were performed, which showed that control regions were more variable than the concatenated protein-coding genes. As a result of analysing phylogenetic relationships of four Sebastes species by using concatenated nucleotide sequences of 13 protein-coding genes, S. minor, S. trivittatus, S. owstoni and S. steindachneri were clustered into three clades. The phylogenetic tree exhibited that S. minor and S. steindachneri shared a closer relationship, whereas S. trivittatus and S. vulpes formed another distinct clade. Our results contribute to a better understanding of evolutionary patterns of Sebastes species inhabiting the middle East Sea, Korea.