Abstract
Leonurus cardiaca has a long history of use in western herbal medicine and is applied for the treatment of gynaecological conditions, anxiety, and heart diseases. Because of its botanical relationship to the primary Chinese species, L. japonicus, and extensive medical indications that go beyond the traditional indications for the Chinese species, it is a promising medicinal resource. Therefore, the features of genetic diversity and variability in the species have been prioritized. To explore these issues, we sequenced the chloroplast genomes of 22 accessions of L. cardiaca from different geographical locations worldwide using high-throughput sequencing. The results indicate that L. cardiaca has a typical quadripartite structure and range from 1,51,236 bp to 1,51,831 bp in size, forming eight haplotypes. The genomes all contain 114 distinct genes, including 80 protein-coding genes, 30 transfer RNA genes and four ribosomal RNA genes. Comparative analysis showed abundant diversity of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), indels, simple sequence repeats (SSRs) in 22 accessions. Codon usage showed highly similar results for L. cardiaca species. The phylogenetic and network analysis indicated 22 accessions forming four clades that were partly related to the geographical distribution. In summary, our study highlights the advantage of chloroplast genome with large data sets in intraspecific diversity evaluation and provides a new tool to facilitate medicinal plant conservation and domestication.
Highlights
The Leonurus genus consists of herbaceous perennial plants that are widely distributed in Asia and Europe and naturalized in America and Africa (National Commission of Chinese Pharmacopoeia, 2015)
Voucher specimens were deposited at the herbarium of the Institute of Chinese Materia Medica (CMMI)
The genes accD, rpl32, and ycf2 may be absent in some species, and they do not occur in L. cardiaca (Jansen et al, 2007; Oliver et al, 2010; Wicke et al, 2011)
Summary
The Leonurus genus consists of herbaceous perennial plants that are widely distributed in Asia and Europe and naturalized in America and Africa (National Commission of Chinese Pharmacopoeia, 2015). One species that has long been used in Western herbal medicine and is commonly called “motherwort,” is Leonurus cardiaca. L. cardiaca is the typical species used medicinally of the Leonurus genus in Western countries, such as England, Poland, Bulgaria, Czech, the United States, etc. L. cardiaca, like its Chinese cousin, is frequently used for regulating menstruation and treating other gynecological diseases. It is commonly used to treat anxiety, sleeplessness, and heart diseases (Shikov et al, 2011; Pitschmann et al, 2017; Zhang et al, 2018; Garran et al, 2019; Garran, 2020). Due to its wide clinical use and economic value, L. cardiaca is a meritorious medicinal resource that hosts promising values for domestication and cultivation in China
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