In silico comparative analysis of the complete chloroplast genome sequences in the mulberry family (Moraceae)

Abstract

The mulberry family (Moraceae) encompasses a wide range of angiosperms and includes several important fruit plants, such as jackfruit, breadfruit, and figs, among others. While there have been multiple published complete chloroplast (cp) genomes within this family, there has been no comprehensive study that summarizes the characteristics of these sequences. In the current study, a comprehensive analysis was conducted using a dataset consisting of 32 cp genomes obtained from NCBI GenBank. These genomes belong to 32 species, encompassing 12 genera within the mulberry family. The collected data were used to conduct genomic comparisons and phylogenetic analyses, employing a range of bioinformatics tools. The findings revealed length variations among the cp genomes of different species, ranging from 158,459 bp in Morus mongolica to 162,594 bp in Broussonetia luzonica. Additionally, the study detected structural variations in simple sequence repeat motifs including gene losses. Overall, the phylogenetic results in this study generally supported the existing taxonomy of species within this family, with the exception that Malaisia scandens and Trophis scandens are clustered in the clade of the Broussonetia genus. This investigation provides further evidence of the effectiveness of characterizing the entire cp genome when classifying species and genera within the mulberry family.