Comparison of Four Complete Chloroplast Genomes of Medicinal and Ornamental Meconopsis Species: Genome Organization and Species Discrimination

Xiaoxue Li,Beibei Xiang,Yong Wang,Junhua Du,Chenguang Zheng,Wei Tan,Jiqi Sun,Min Zheng,Xiaoxuan Tian

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-47008-8

Abstract

High-throughput sequencing of chloroplast genomes has been used to gain insight into the evolutionary relationships of plant species. In this study, we sequenced the complete chloroplast genomes of four species in the Meconopsis genus: M. racemosa, M. integrifolia (Maxim.) Franch, M. horridula and M. punicea. These plants grow in the wild and are recognized as having important medicinal and ornamental applications. The sequencing results showed that the size of the Meconopsis chloroplast genome ranges from 151864 to 153816 bp. A total of 127 genes comprising 90 protein-coding genes, 37 tRNA genes and 8 rRNA genes were observed in all four chloroplast genomes. Comparative analysis of the four chloroplast genomes revealed five hotspot regions (matK, rpoC2, petA, ndhF, and ycf1), which could potentially be used as unique molecular markers for species identification. In addition, the ycf1 gene may also be used as an effective molecular marker to distinguish Papaveraceae and determine the evolutionary relationships among plant species in the Papaveraceae family. Futhermore, these four genomes can provide valuable genetic information for other related studies.

Highlights

High-throughput sequencing of chloroplast genomes has been used to gain insight into the evolutionary relationships of plant species
More complex and longer repeat sequences may play an important roles in sequence divergence and genomes[26]. In these four Meconopsis chloroplast genomes, we found that the length of repeated sequences ranged mainly from 30 to 90 bp, similar to the lengths reported in other angiosperm plants[25,27,28]
The results showed that M. racemosa, M. racemosa (MH394401)[11] and M. horridula are grouped together and that M. integrifolia (Maxim.) Franch and M. punicea are grouped together

Summary

Introduction

High-throughput sequencing of chloroplast genomes has been used to gain insight into the evolutionary relationships of plant species. We sequenced the complete chloroplast genomes of four species in the Meconopsis genus: M. racemosa, M. integrifolia (Maxim.) Franch, M. horridula and M. punicea These plants grow in the wild and are recognized as having important medicinal and ornamental applications. To understand the evolutionary relationships of plant species in the Meconopsis genus and in the Papaveraceae family, it is important to obtain genetic information or molecular markers of individual species This “barcode” can aid in medicinal usage, for which the accurate identification of species is required, as the regions and sources of species are often complex or unknown[6,7,8] and can affect the efficacy of the final medicinal product. This study expands our understanding of the diversity of chloroplast genomes of Meconopsis species and their evolutionary relationships and provides fundamental data for the genetic engineering of Meconopsis chloroplasts

Methods

Results

Conclusion