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The complete mitochondrial genome of Macaca thibetana was determined by the long and accurate polymerase chain reaction (LA-PCR) and primer walking sequencing methods. It is 16,540 bp and contains 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, two ribosomal RNA genes and one control region. Most codon usage followed the typical pattern of vertebrates. Two rare start codons were found, in which GTG initiated the NADH dehydrogenase subunit 1 (ND1) gene and the ATP8 gene, and ATT initiated the ND2 gene. A new mitochondrial DNA-like sequence (2003 bp) in the nuclear genome of M. thibetana was found. It matched with the 3' end of the ND1 gene, the tRNA(Ile)-tRNA(Gln)-tRNA(Met) genes, the ND2 gene, and the 5' end of the tRNA(Trp) gene. Sequence divergence between the nuclear pseudogene and the mitochondrial homologue suggested that the translocation of this mtDNA fragment into the nuclear genome occurred 3.16 approximately 3.48 million years ago (MYA). Molecular phylogenetic analysis of 16 Cercopithecidae species was performed using sequences from 12 concatenated heavy-strand encoded protein coding genes. The results provided more evidence to support previous morphological and chromosomal studies on Cercopithecidae.

The Chinese scrub vole (Neodon irene) belongs to the subfamily Arvicolinae, which is restricted to mountain areas at high altitudes (2800-4000). In this study, we sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome of N. irene. It was determined to be 16,367 bases. The nucleotide sequence data of 12 heavy-strand protein-coding genes of N. irene and other 22 rodents were used for phylogenetic analysis. Bayesian inference (BI) and maximum likelihood (ML) were used. Both the BI and ML trees demonstrated that Microtus rossiaemeridionalis and Microtus kikuchii did not cluster together with each other. On the contrary, M. rossiaemeridionalis showed close relationship with N. irene. In the present study, only one sequence from Neodon and two sequences from Microtus were included in the phylogenetic analysis which should contribute to the unusual relationship. Therefore, in order to better understand the phylogenetic relationship within Rodentia, more rodents' complete mitochondrial genomes are required.