Comparative plastome genomics and phylogenetic relationships of the genus Trollius

Jiaxin Li; Yan Du; Lei Xie; Xiaohua Jin; Zhirong Zhang; Meiqing Yang

doi:10.3389/fpls.2023.1293091

Comparative plastome genomics and phylogenetic relationships of the genus Trollius

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Nov 17:14:1293091. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1293091. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Jiaxin Li^#¹, Yan Du^#¹, Lei Xie², Xiaohua Jin³, Zhirong Zhang⁴, Meiqing Yang¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Pharmacy, Baotou Medical College, Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China.
² School of Ecology and Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁴ Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Trollius, a genus in the Ranunculaceae family, has significant medicinal and ornamental value. It is widely distributed in China with 16 different species accepted. However, due to the lack of enough samples and information sites, the molecular phylogenetic relationships of Trollius have been unresolved till now. Here we sequenced, assembled and annotated the plastomes of 16 Trollius species to investigate their genomic characteristics, inverted repeat (IR) boundaries, sequence repeats, and hypervariable loci. In addition, the phylogenetic relationships of this genus was reconstructed based on the whole plastomes and the protein-coding sequences data-sets. The plastomes of Trollius ranged between 159,597 bp and 160,202 bp in length, and contained 113 unique genes, including 79 protein coding, 30 tRNA, and 4 rRNA. The IR boundaries were relatively conserved within the genus Trollius. 959 simple sequence repeats and 657 long sequence repeats were detected in the Trollius plastomes. We identified 12 highly polymorphic loci (Pi > 0.0115) that can be used as plastid markers in molecular identification and phylogenetic investigation of the genus. Besides, Trollius was a monophyletic group with the earliest divergence clade being Trollius lilacinus Bunge, and the remaining species were divided into two strongly-supported clades. The phylogeny in our study supported the traditional classification systems based on the color of sepal, but not the previous classification system based on the types and relative lengths of the nectaries, and distribution. The genomic resources provided in our study can be used in the taxonomy of the genus Trollius, promoting the development and utilization of this genus.

Keywords: Trollius; comparative analysis; divergent hotspots; phylogenetic relationships; plastome.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Inner Mongolia (No. 2020MS08005).