Abstract
The horticulturally important genus Zantedeschia (Araceae) comprises eight species of herbaceous perennials. We sequenced, assembled and analyzed the chloroplast (cp) genomes of four species of Zantedeschia (Z. aethiopica, Z. odorata, Z. elliottiana, and Z. rehmannii) to investigate the structure of the cp genome in the genus. According to our results, the cp genome of Zantedeschia ranges in size from 169,065 bp (Z. aethiopica) to 175,906 bp (Z. elliottiana). We identified a total of 112 unique genes, including 78 protein-coding genes, 30 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes and four ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes. Comparison of our results with cp genomes from other species in the Araceae suggests that the relatively large sizes of the Zantedeschia cp genomes may result from inverted repeats (IR) region expansion. The sampled Zantedeschia species formed a monophylogenetic clade in our phylogenetic analysis. Furthermore, the long single copy (LSC) and short single copy (SSC) regions in Zantedeschia are more divergent than the IR regions in the same genus, and non-coding regions showed generally higher divergence than coding regions. We identified a total of 410 cpSSR sites from the four Zantedeschia species studied. Genetic diversity analyses based on four polymorphic SSR markers from 134 cultivars of Zantedeschia suggested that high genetic diversity (I = 0.934; Ne = 2.371) is present in the Zantedeschia cultivars. High genetic polymorphism from the cpSSR region suggests that cpSSR could be an effective tool for genetic diversity assessment and identification of Zantedeschia varieties.
Highlights
The cp genomes of these Zantedeschia species ranged in length from169,065 bp (Z. aethiopica) to 175,906 bp (Z. elliottiana), and, as expected, the cp genomes of all four species were found to contain both the large and small single-copy regions, separated by a pair of inverted repeat regions (Fig. 1 & Fig. S1, Table 1)
Of all the species we studied, the cp genome of Z. aethiopica had the fewest of genes (131), and differed from Z. elliottiana in single copies of ndhA, ndhE, ndhG, ndhH, ndhI, rps19, trnH-GUG and trnV-UAC (Table 2)
The sequencing, assembly, annotation and comparative analyses revealed that the cp genome of Zantedeschia has a quadruple structure, with a gene order and GC content similar to those of typical angiosperm cp genomes
Summary
Zantedeschia and Aestivae, are currently recognized in the genus Zantedeschia. Species in section Zantedeschia, Z. aethiopica and Z. odorata (Singh, Wyk & Baijnath, 1996), can be recognized by the rhizomatous tuber and white flowers. Species in section Aestivae, have colorful (not white) flowers and discoid tubers (Singh, Wyk & Baijnath, 1996; Wright & Burge, 2000). Many attractive and colorful hybrids between species in section Aestivae have been artificially produced, the majority between Z. albomaculata, Z. elliotiana, Z. rehmannii and Z. pentlandii (Snijder et al, 2004a). The genus Zantedeschia is of horticultural interest, F1 hybrids between sections Zantedeschia and Aestivae are invariably albino
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