Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh. is a model organism of plant molecular biology. More than 1,700 whole genome sequences have been sequenced, but no Korean isolate genomes have been sequenced thus far despite the fact that many A. thaliana isolated in Japan and China have been sequenced. To understand the genetic background of Korean natural A. thaliana (named as 180404IB4), we presented its complete chloroplast genome, which is 154,464 bp long and has four subregions: 85,164 bp of large single copy (LSC) and 17,781 bp of small single copy (SSC) regions are separated by 26,257 bp of inverted repeat (IRs) regions including 130 genes (85 protein-coding genes, eight rRNAs, and 37 tRNAs). Fifty single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 14 insertion and deletions (INDELs) are identified between 180404IB4 and Col0. In addition, 101 SSRs and 42 extendedSSRs were identified on the Korean A. thaliana chloroplast genome, indicating a similar number of SSRs on the rest five chloroplast genomes with a preference of sequence variations toward the SSR region. A nucleotide diversity analysis revealed two highly variable regions on A. thaliana chloroplast genomes. Phylogenetic trees with three more chloroplast genomes of East Asian natural isolates show that Korean and Chinese natural isolates are clustered together, whereas two Japanese isolates are not clustered, suggesting the need for additional investigations of the chloroplast genomes of East Asian isolates.

Complete chloroplast genome sequences provide detailed information about any structural changes of the genome, instances of phylogenetic reconstruction, and molecular markers for fine-scale analyses. Recent developments of next-generation sequencing (NGS) tools have led to the rapid accumulation of genomic data, especially data pertaining to chloroplasts. Short reads deposited in public databases such as the Sequence Read Archive of the NCBI are open resources, and the corresponding chloroplast genomes are yet to be completed. The V. dilatatum complex in Korea consists of four morphologically similar species: V. dilatatum, V. erosum, V. japonicum, and V. wrightii. Previous molecular phylogenetic analyses based on several DNA regions did not resolve the relationship at the species level. In order to examine the level of variation of the chloroplast genome in the V. dilatatum complex, raw reads of V. dilatatum deposited in the NCBI database were used to reconstruct the whole chloroplast genome, with these results compared to the genomes of V. erosum, V. japonicum, and three other species in Viburnum. These comparative genomics results found no significant structural changes in Viburnum. The degree of interspecific variation among the species in the V. dilatatum complex is very low, suggesting that the species of the complex may have been differentiated recently. The species of the V. dilatatum complex share large unique deletions, providing evidence of close relationships among the species. A phylogenetic analysis of the entire genome of the Viburnum showed that V. dilatatum is a sister to one of two accessions of V. erosum, making V. erosum paraphyletic. Given that the overall degree of variation among the species in the V. dilatatum complex is low, the chloroplast genome may not provide a phylogenetic signal pertaining to relationships among the species.

Completed mitochondrial genome of a new species candidate of Rosa rugosa, named as Rosa angusta, is 303,484 bp long. The overall GC content of this mitochondrial genome is 45.2%. It contains 52 genes covering 31 protein-coding genes, 17 tRNAs, and 3 rRNAs. In comparison to R. rugosa mitochondrial genome assembled from the public NGS raw reads, 124 SNPs and 769 INDELs were identified. Phylogenetic trees suggest that more Rosa mitochondrial genomes will be needed to understand phylogenetic relationship of the two Rosa species.

GATA transcription factors (TFs) are widespread eukaryotic regulators whose DNA-binding domain is a class IV zinc finger motif (CX2CX17-20CX2C) followed by a basic region. Due to the low cost of genome sequencing, multiple strains of specific species have been sequenced: e.g., number of plant genomes in the Plant Genome Database (http://www.plantgenome.info/) is 2,174 originated from 713 plant species. Thus, we investigated GATA TFs of 19 Arabidopsis thaliana genome-widely to understand intraspecific features of Arabidopsis GATA TFs with the pipeline of GATA database (http://gata.genefamily.info/). Numbers of GATA genes and GATA TFs of each A. thaliana genome range from 29 to 30 and from 39 to 42, respectively. Four cases of different pattern of alternative splicing forms of GATA genes among 19 A. thaliana genomes are identified. 22 of 2,195 amino acids (1.002%) from the alignment of GATA domain amino acid sequences display variations across 19 ecotype genomes. In addition, maximally four different amino acid sequences per each GATA domain identified in this study indicate that these position-specific amino acid variations may invoke intraspecific functional variations. Among 15 functionally characterized GATA genes, only five GATA genes display variations of amino acids across ecotypes of A. thaliana, implying variations of their biological roles across natural isolates of A. thaliana. PCA results from 28 characteristics of GATA genes display the four groups, same to those defined by the number of GATA genes. Topologies of bootstrapped phylogenetic trees of Arabidopsis chloroplasts and common GATA genes are mostly incongruent. Moreover, no relationship between geographical distribution and their phylogenetic relationships was found. Our results present that intraspecific variations of GATA TFs in A. thaliana are conserved and evolutionarily neutral along with 19 ecotypes, which is congruent to the fact that GATA TFs are one of the main regulators for controlling essential mechanisms, such as seed germination and hypocotyl elongation.

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