Loss of mitochondrial single stranded DNA-binding protein (mtSSB) gene is associated with mitochondrial genome fragmentation in Psocodea (bark lice, book lice, and parasitic lice)

Nan Song; Renfu Shao

doi:10.1186/s12915-025-02479-2

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Loss of mitochondrial single stranded DNA-binding protein (mtSSB) gene is associated with mitochondrial genome fragmentation in Psocodea (bark lice, book lice, and parasitic lice)

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Loss of mitochondrial single stranded DNA-binding protein (mtSSB) gene is associated with mitochondrial genome fragmentation in Psocodea (bark lice, book lice, and parasitic lice)

Nan Song and Renfu Shao

BMC Biology, Vol.24, pp.1-11

2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-025-02479-2

PMCID: PMC12797587

PMID: 41351112

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Abstract

Organelle genome evolution

Psocodea

mtSSB gene

Lice

Genome fragmentation

Background Organelle genome fragmentation is a drastic large-scale chromosomal mutation. Why and how organelle genomes become fragmented is still poorly understood. Two previous studies based on whole genome comparison between human louse and fruit fly proposed that the loss of mtSSB gene (for mitochondrial single-stranded DNA-binding protein) might be associated with mitochondrial (mt) genome fragmentation. Whether this association is valid has not been investigated due to the lack of mt genome fragmentation data. Results We investigated this association by exploring the genomic and transcriptomic data of 198 species of parasitic lice, book lice, bark lice, and other closely related hemipteroid insects accumulated in the past few decades. We show that the loss of mtSSB gene is correlated significantly with mt genome fragmentation in bark lice, book lice, and parasitic lice (Psocodea). The absence of mtSSB is more frequent than expected in the species with fragmented mt genomes whereas the presence of mtSSB is more frequent than expected in the species with single-chromosome mt genome organization. Nevertheless, our results reject a cause-and-effect relationship between the loss of mtSSB and mt genome fragmentation because mtSSB is present in 11 species of parasitic lice and one book louse species that have fragmented mt genomes. Conclusions The loss of mtSSB gene is correlated with mt genome fragmentation but is not the cause of mt genome fragmentation. Rather, it is plausible that fragmented mt genomes with multiple small-sized minichromosomes may make mtSSB gene and mtSSB protein less critical or unnecessary, leading to their loss eventually in the species with fragmented mt genomes.

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Title: Loss of mitochondrial single stranded DNA-binding protein (mtSSB) gene is associated with mitochondrial genome fragmentation in Psocodea (bark lice, book lice, and parasitic lice)
Authors: Nan Song (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Centre for Bioinnovation
Renfu Shao (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Centre for Bioinnovation
Publication details: BMC Biology, Vol.24, pp.1-11
Publisher: BioMed Central Ltd.
Date published: 2026
DOI: 10.1186/s12915-025-02479-2
ISSN: 1741-7007
PMID: 41351112; PMC12797587
Copyright note: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Data Availability: Details of the samples used in this study are provided in Additional file 2: Table S2, along with the associated accession numbers for the genome, transcriptome, and EST sequences. All genomic, transcriptomic, and EST sequence data analyzed in this work were retrieved from the publicly accessible NCBI databases.
Grants: The biodiversity, taxonomy and systematics of Australian sucking lice (Psocodea: Phthiraptera: Anoplura), RF217-51, Australian Biological Resources Study
Grant note: U1904104 / National Natural Science Foundation of China; 252300420190 / Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province, China
Organisation Unit: School of Science, Technology and Engineering; Centre for Bioinnovation
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991188740702621
Output Type: Journal article

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