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Chloroplast genomic comparison of two sister species Allium macranthum and A. fasciculatum provides valuable insights into adaptive evolution

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Abstract

Background

Allium macranthum and Allium fasciculatum are two sister species and their natural populations are separated by high mountains and deep valleys with exact opposite habitat. The chloroplast genome in angiosperms has showed useful for investigating plant evolution and systematic studies.

Objective

Comparative analysis of these genomes revealed potential markers and phylogenetic analysis, and discuss the influence of positive selected sites on adaptive evolution.

Methods

Here, we sequenced the complete chloroplast genomes of these two species and analyzed the repeat sequences components, nucleotide diversity, selection pressure and the phylogeny relationships with related species.

Results

A typical quadripartite structure was detected with a genome size changed from 152,148 to 152,931 bp. We identified 67 and 79 simple sequence repeats in A. macranthum and A. fasciculatum, in which the mono-nucleotide repeats A/T possess the highest percentage. Three mutational hotspots (rpl32, rps16 and matK) at the SSC and LSC regions were observed, which showed remarkably higher Pi value (> 0.03). Additionally, eight genes (rpoA, atpF, cemA, rps4, ccsA, rpoC2, rpl14 and clpP) exhibited elevated pairwise Ka/Ks ratios in alpine species. Phylogenetic analyses based on the CDS sequences and the whole complete genomes showed same topologies with high support, and A. macranthum was closely clustered with A. fasciculatum within the fourteen Amaryllidaceae species.

Conclusion

Their coding proteins of these genes often functioned in chloroplast protein synthesis, gene transcription, energy transformation and regulation and photosynthesis. These results provide valuable insights into the alpine species adaptation and evolution.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge Xin Yang, Yan-ping Xiao, Wei Gou, and Xin-rui Xu for their help in materials collection and technical support. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant nos. 31872647, 31570198), and the Specimen Platform of China, Teaching Specimen’s sub-platform (Available website: https://mnh.scu.edu.cn/), the Science and Technology Basic Work (Grant no. 2013FY112100).

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Correspondence to Xing-Jin He.

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Conflict of interest

Authors do not have any conflict of interest to declare concerning to the present work.

Research involving with human and animal participants

This article does not contain any animal or human subjects in any studies of the authors. The plant materials are not in the endangered species list.

Data archiving statement

The complete cp genomes of A. macranthum and A. fasciculatum were submitted to the GenBank under the accession numbers MK251466 and MK251467. A full list of accession numbers in this article is included at Supplementary Table S9.

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Li, H., Xie, DF., Chen, JP. et al. Chloroplast genomic comparison of two sister species Allium macranthum and A. fasciculatum provides valuable insights into adaptive evolution. Genes Genom 42, 507–517 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13258-020-00920-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13258-020-00920-0

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