Comparative analyses of complete chloroplast genomes reveal interspecific difference and intraspecific variation of Tripterygium genus

Kai-Ling Xu; Zhong-Mou Zhang; Wen-Liang Fang; Ya-Dan Wang; Hong-Yu Jin; Feng Wei; Shuang-Cheng Ma

doi:10.3389/fpls.2023.1288943

Comparative analyses of complete chloroplast genomes reveal interspecific difference and intraspecific variation of Tripterygium genus

Front Plant Sci. 2024 Jan 9:14:1288943. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1288943. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Kai-Ling Xu^#¹, Zhong-Mou Zhang^#^{1

2}, Wen-Liang Fang¹, Ya-Dan Wang¹, Hong-Yu Jin¹, Feng Wei¹, Shuang-Cheng Ma¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Control of Chinese Traditional Medicine and Ethnic Medicine, National Institutes for Food and Drug Control, Beijing, China.
² School of Traditional Chinese Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

The genus Tripterygium was of great medicinal value and attracted much attention on the taxonomic study using morphological and molecular methods. In this study, we assembled 12 chloroplast genomes of Tripterygium to reveal interspecific difference and intraspecific variation. The sequence length (156,692-157,061 bp) and structure of Tripterygium were conserved. Comparative analyses presented abundant variable regions for further study. Meanwhile, we determined the ndhB gene under positive selection through adaptive evolution analysis. And the phylogenetic analyses based on 15 chloroplast genomes supported the monophyly of Tripterygium hypoglaucum and the potential sister relationship between Tripterygium wilfordii and Tripterygium regelii. Molecular dating analysis indicated that the divergence time within Tripterygium was approximately 5.99 Ma (95% HPD = 3.11-8.68 Ma). The results in our study provided new insights into the taxonomy, evolution process, and phylogenetic construction of Tripterygium using complete plastid genomes.

Keywords: Tripterygium hypoglaucum; Tripterygium wilfordii; chloroplast genome; genome structure; hypervariable regions; phylogenetic analysis.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was funded by NIFDC Fund for Key Technology Research (1020572284489).