Abstract
The genus Styrax L. consists of approximately 130 species distributed in the Americas, eastern Asia, and the Mediterranean region. The phylogeny and evolutionary history of this genus are not clear. Knowledge of the phylogenetic relationships and the method for species identification will be critical for the evolution of this genus. In this study, we sequenced the chloroplast genome of 17 Styrax samples and added 17 additional chloroplast genome sequences from GenBank. The data were used to investigate chloroplast genome evolution, infer phylogenetic relationships, and access the species identification rate within Styrax. The Styrax chloroplast genome contains typical quadripartite structures, ranging from 157,641 bp to 159,333 bp. The chloroplast genome contains 114 unique genes. The P distance among the Styrax species ranged from 0.0003 to 0.00611. Seventeen small inversions and SSR sites were discovered in the Styrax chloroplast genome. By comparing with the chloroplast genome sequences, six mutation hotspots were identified, and the markers ycf1b and trnT-trnL were identified as the best Styrax-specific DNA barcodes. The specific barcodes and superbarcode exhibited higher discriminatory power than universal barcodes. Chloroplast phylogenomic results improved the resolution of the phylogenetic relationships of Styrax compared to previous analyses.
Highlights
Chloroplasts are involved in photosynthesis and energy transformation in plants [1, 2]
Illumina paired-end sequencing produced between 11,971,102 (S. japonicus) and 40,957,798 (S. rugosus) pairedend clean reads per samples. After screening these pairedend reads through mapping with Styrax chloroplast genome using Geneious V9, 67,059 to 1,702,907 chloroplast genome reads were extracted with 64 × ðS:americanusÞ to 1,618 × ðS :roseusÞ coverage (Table S2)
The chloroplast genome length ranged from 157,641 bp (S. japonicus) to 159,333 bp (S. suberifolius)
Summary
Chloroplasts are involved in photosynthesis and energy transformation in plants [1, 2]. The important role of the chloroplast genome is functioning of the photosynthesis and other metabolic processes. The chloroplast genome is 120-160 kb in length [2, 3] and has a highly conserved quadripartite circular organization. This organization contains two single-copy regions (LSC and SSC) separated by two copies of inverted repeat (IR) regions [4]. The chloroplast genome encodes approximately 80 protein-coding genes, four rRNAs, and 30 tRNA genes [1, 2]
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