Limited locomotive ability relaxed selective constraints on molluscs mitochondrial genomes

Mollusca are the second largest phylum in the animal kingdom with different types of locomotion. Some molluscs are poor-migrating, while others are free-moving or fast-swimming. Most of the energy required for locomotion is provided by mitochondria via oxidative phosphorylation. Here, we conduct a comparative genomic analysis of 256 molluscs complete mitochondrial genomes and evaluate the role of energetic functional constraints on the protein-coding genes, providing a new insight into mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) evolution. The weakly locomotive molluscs, compared to strongly locomotive molluscs, show significantly higher Ka/Ks ratio, which suggest they accumulated more nonsynonymous mutations in mtDNA and have experienced more relaxed evolutionary constraints. Eleven protein-coding genes (CoxI, CoxII, ATP6, Cytb, ND1-6, ND4L) show significant difference for Ka/Ks ratios between the strongly and weakly locomotive groups. The relaxation of selective constraints on Atp8 arise in the common ancestor of bivalves, and the further relaxation occurred in marine bivalves lineage. Our study thus demonstrates that selective constraints relevant to locomotive ability play an essential role in evolution of molluscs mtDNA.