Heterogeneous Genetic Diversity Estimation of a Promising Domestication Medicinal Motherwort Leonurus Cardiaca Based on Chloroplast Genome Resources

Abstract

Leonurus cardiaca has a long history of use in western herbal medicine and is applied for the treatment of gynaecological conditions, anxiety, and heart diseases. Because of its botanical relationship to the primary Chinese species, L. japonicus, and extensive medical indications that go beyond the traditional indications for the Chinese species, it is a promising medicinal resource. Therefore, the features of genetic diversity and variability in the species have been prioritized. To explore these issues, we sequenced the chloroplast genomes of 22 accessions of L. cardiaca from different geographical locations worldwide using high-throughput sequencing. The results indicate that L. cardiaca has a typical quadripartite structure and range from 1,51,236 bp to 1,51,831 bp in size, forming eight haplotypes. The genomes all contain 114 distinct genes, including 80 protein-coding genes, 30 transfer RNA genes and four ribosomal RNA genes. Comparative analysis showed abundant diversity of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), indels, simple sequence repeats (SSRs) in 22 accessions. Codon usage showed highly similar results for L. cardiaca species. The phylogenetic and network analysis indicated 22 accessions forming four clades that were partly related to the geographical distribution. In summary, our study highlights the advantage of chloroplast genome with large data sets in intraspecific diversity evaluation and provides a new tool to facilitate medicinal plant conservation and domestication.

Multiplexed Massively Parallel Sequencing of Plastomes Provides Insights Into the Genetic Diversity, Population Structure, and Phylogeography of Wild and Cultivated Coptis chinensis

“…Deterministic or stochastic forces, such as natural selection and genetic drift, increase genetic diversity at several levels of biological organization (individuals, populations, and species) ( Sun et al, 2021 ). Higher genetic diversity generally results in more adapted genotypes and is associated with greater evolutionary potential and resilience of species or populations ( Falk and Holsinger, 1991 ).…”

Comparative chloroplast genomics provides insights into the genealogical relationships of endangered Tetraena mongolica and the chloroplast genome evolution of related Zygophyllaceae species

“…Additionally, extremely low sequence diversity was exhibited. Consequently, we found that cp genomes of T. mongolica were highly conserved, as observed in most land plants, such as Leonurus Cardiaca (Sun et al, 2021), Cercidiphyllum japonicum (Zhu et al, 2020). Among the six cp genomes of Zygophyllaceae, genome length, organization and gene content of T. mongolica were more similar to the cp genome of Z. xanthoxylon and Z. mucronatum than to the remaining three species, exhibiting the drastically reduced IRs, the loss of ndh gene family and one copy of rRNAs.…”

“…Additionally, extremely low sequence diversity was exhibited. Consequently, we found that cp genomes of T. mongolica were highly conserved, as observed in most land plants, such as Leonurus Cardiaca ( Sun et al, 2021 ), Cercidiphyllum japonicum ( Zhu et al, 2020 ).…”

Evolutionary history of genus Coptis and its dynamic changes in the potential suitable distribution area

“…As mentioned above, Coptis is a genus with enormous value in research and development. Genetic diversity defines the evolutionary potential and resilience of species ( Sun et al., 2021 ). Thus, it is crucially important to evaluate the genetic diversity of this genus.…”

“…With the development of next-generation sequencing technologies, plastome genome sequences can be obtained more efficiently by directly sequencing total genomic DNA and de novo assembling whole plastid genomes ( Sun et al., 2021 ). Due to its stable structure, rare recombination, moderate evolution rate, and largely uniparental inheritance, plastomes have been extensively used to reveal the evolutionary dynamics, such as phylogeny, phylogeography, demographic history and species diversity estimation ( Aguirre Planter et al., 2020 ; Dong et al., 2021a ; Dong et al., 2021b ; Wang Y. et al., 2021 ; Wang Z. et al., 2021 ).…”