Mitochondrial phylogenomics provides insights into the taxonomy and phylogeny of fleas.

Background: Fleas (Insecta: Siphonaptera) are obligatory hematophagous ectoparasites of humans and animals and serve as vectors of many disease-causing agents. Despite past and current research efforts on fleas due to their medical and veterinary importance, correct identification and robust phylogenetic analysis of these ectoparasites have often proved challenging.

Methods: We decoded the complete mitochondrial (mt) genome of the human flea Pulex irritans and nearly complete mt genome of the dog flea Ctenocephalides canis, and subsequently used this information to reconstruct the phylogeny of fleas among Endopterygota insects.

Results: The complete mt genome of P. irritans was 20,337 bp, whereas the clearly sequenced coding region of the C. canis mt genome was 15,609 bp. Both mt genomes were found to contain 37 genes, including 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes and two ribosomal RNA genes. The coding region of the C. canis mt genome was only 93.5% identical to that of the cat flea C. felis, unequivocally confirming that they are distinct species. Our phylogenomic analyses of the mt genomes showed a sister relationship between the order Siphonaptera and orders Diptera + Mecoptera + Megaloptera + Neuroptera and positively support the hypothesis that the fleas in the order Siphonaptera are monophyletic.

Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that the mt genomes of P. irritans and C. canis are different. The phylogenetic tree shows that fleas are monophyletic and strongly support an order-level objective. These mt genomes provide novel molecular markers for studying the taxonomy and phylogeny of fleas in the future.