Comparative Plastid Genomics of Four Pilea (Urticaceae) Species: Insight into Interspecific Plastid Genome Diversity in Pilea

Abstract

Background: Pilea is a genus of perennial herbs from the family Urticaceae, and some species are used as courtyard ornamentals or for medicinal purposes. At present, there is no information about the plastid genome of Pilea, which limits our understanding of this genus. Here, we report 4 plastid genomes of Pilea taxa (Pilea mollis Wedd., Pilea glauca 'Greizy', Pilea peperomioides Diels. and Pilea serpyllacea 'Globosa') and performed comprehensive comparative analysis.Results: The four plastid genomes all have a typical quartile structure. The lengths of the plastid genomes ranged from 150,398 bp to 152,327 bp, and each genome contained 113 unique genes, including 79 protein-coding genes, 4 rRNA genes, and 30 tRNA genes. Comparative analysis showed a rather high level of sequence divergence in the four genomes. Moreover, eight hypervariable regions were identified, petN-psbM, psbZ-trnG-GCC, trnT-UGU-trnL-UAA, accD-psbI, ndhF-rpl32, rpl32-trnL-UAG, ndhA-intron and ycf1, which are proposed for use as DNA barcode regions. Phylogenetic relationships based on the plastid genomes of 23 species of 14 genera of Urticaceae resulted in the placement of Pilea in the middle and lower part of the phylogenetic tree, with 100% bootstrap support within Urticaceae.Conclusion: Our results enrich the resources concerning plastid genomes. Comparative plastome analysis provides insight into the interspecific diversity of the plastid genome of Pilea. The identified hypervariable regions could be used for developing molecular markers applicable in various research areas.

The Comparative Analyses of Six Complete Chloroplast Genomes of Morphologically Diverse Chenopodium album L. (Amaranthaceae) Collected in Korea

“…An IR region covers three SNPs and three INDEL regions (68 bp in length), which corresponds to the lowest nucleotide diversity in the IR region ( π = 0.0000146). The low level of sequence variations in the IR region is known as a general phenomenon in the chloroplast genomes [ 25 – 27 ].…”