Comparative analysis of plastid genomes within the Campanulaceae and phylogenetic implications

PLoS One. 2020 May 14;15(5):e0233167. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0233167. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

The conflicts exist between the phylogeny of Campanulaceae based on nuclear ITS sequence and plastid markers, particularly in the subdivision of Cyanantheae (Campanulaceae). Besides, various and complicated plastid genome structures can be found in species of the Campanulaceae. However, limited availability of genomic information largely hinders the studies of molecular evolution and phylogeny of Campanulaceae. We reported the complete plastid genomes of three Cyanantheae species, compared them to eight published Campanulaceae plastomes, and shed light on a deeper understanding of the applicability of plastomes. We found that there were obvious differences among gene order, GC content, gene compositions and IR junctions of LSC/IRa. Almost all protein-coding genes and amino acid sequences showed obvious codon preferences. We identified 14 genes with highly positively selected sites and branch-site model displayed 96 sites under potentially positive selection on the three lineages of phylogenetic tree. Phylogenetic analyses showed that Cyananthus was more closely related to Codonopsis compared with Cyclocodon and also clearly illustrated the relationship among the Cyanantheae species. We also found six coding regions having high nucleotide divergence value. Hotpot regions were considered to be useful molecular markers for resolving phylogenetic relationships and species authentication of Campanulaceae.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Campanulaceae / classification*
  • Campanulaceae / genetics*
  • Codon, Terminator / genetics
  • Genome, Plastid / genetics*
  • Inverted Repeat Sequences / genetics
  • Microsatellite Repeats / genetics
  • Open Reading Frames / genetics
  • Phylogeny*
  • Selection, Genetic

Substances

  • Codon, Terminator

Grants and funding

De-Zhu Li received the funding. This research was funded by Chinese Academy of Sciences, grant number XDB31000000. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.