The complete chloroplast genome of Theobroma grandiflorum, an important tropical crop

Abstract

Theobroma grandiflorum (Willd. ex Spreng.) K. Schum., an economically important tree in the family Malvaceae, is native to the Amazonian region of South America and it is widely cultivated as a tropical crop. Herein, we report the complete chloroplast genome of T. grandiflorum. The size of the complete chloroplast genome of T. grandiflorum is 160,606 bp with 36.88% GC content, which includes a pair of inverted repeat regions (IRs) of 25,496 bp separated by a large single-copy region (LSC) of 89,429 bp and a small single copy (SSC) region of 20,185 bp. A total of 126 genes were annotated, of which 82 were protein-coding genes, 36 were transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, and 8 were ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes. A maximum-likelihood (ML) analysis supported a close relationship between T. grandiflorum and T. cacao. This study will provide useful information for further phylogenetic and evolutionary analysis of Malvaceae.