The complete mitochondrial genome of the spinner shark Carcharhinus brevipinna.

The mitochondrial genome of the spinner shark (Carcharhinus brevipinna) was determined in this study. It was 16,706 bp in length with the typical genomic organization and gene order as most vertebrates. Whole nucleotide base composition was 31.3% A, 25.3% C, 13.2% G and 30.1% T. Among the protein-coding genes, there are three overlapping reading-frames on the same strand, while one of it on the opposite strand. Two start codons (ATG and GTG) and three stop codons (AGG, TAG and TAA/T) were used in 13 protein-coding genes. The 22 tRNA ranged from 67 (tRNA-Cys and tRNA-Ser2) to 75 bp (tRNA-Leu1) in length. Only the tRNA-Ser2 could not fold into the typical clover-leaf structure, which lost the dihydrouridine (DHU) arm and replaced by a simple loop. The control region was 1064 bp in length and showed a higher AT content (66.8%) than the average value of whole mitogenome (61.4%).