The complete chloroplast genome of Rhododendron molle and its phylogenetic position within Ericaceae

Abstract

Rhododendron mole (Blume) G. Don is an attractive ornamental and valuable medicinal plant which widely distributed in the southern regions of China. In order to promote the studies on the genetic diversity of this species, we assembled the complete chloroplast (cp) genome of R. molle by using the genome skimming approach. The results showed that the cp genome of R. molle exhibited a quadripartite cycle with 197,877 bp, comprising of two inverted repeats (IRs) of 43,831 bp separated by a large single copy (LSC) region of 110,189 bp and a quite small single copy (SSC) region of 26 bp. It encodes 146 genes, including 92 protein-coding, 46 tRNA, and eight rRNA genes. The overall GC content of the cp genome was 36.0%. The phylogenetic analysis indicated that R. molle is closely related to R. delavayi. Thus, the cp genome sequence of R. molle provides a rich source of genetic information for studies on Rhododendron taxonomy, phylogeny, and evolution, as well as lays the foundation for further development and utilization of R. molle.

Complete chloroplast genome sequence of Rhododendron mariesii and comparative genomics of related species in the family Ericaeae

“…In particular, all these 22 taxa belonging to Ericaeae were grouped into one clade and clustered into two subclades. Topological structure was almost consistent with the previously published phylogeny ( Liu et al 2021 ). A.…”

“…Plastome genome is useful for comparative genomic research and phylogenomic analyses due to polymorphic regions generated through genomic expansion, inversion, contraction, and gene rearrangement ( Sanitá Lima et al 2016 ; Kahraman et al 2019 ; Li et al 2019 ; Li et al 2020 ; Liu et al 2020 ; Wang et al 2020 ). The single circular cp genome structure of R. mariesii was the same as other species belonging to the Ericaeae with a typical quadripartite structure and similar GC content unevenly distributed across the cp genome ( Liu et al 2021 ; Xu et al 2022). The GC content of R. mariesii cp genome (39.52%) was slightly larger than that of Myracrodruon urundeuva Allemão, 1862 (37.8%) ( Rossini et al 2021 ).…”

Structural characterization of four Rhododendron spp. chloroplast genomes and comparative analyses with other azaleas

“…The published Rhododendron spp. are as follows: R. pulchrum (MN182619, 146,941 bp), R. simsii (MW030509, 152,214 bp), R. delavayi (MN413198, 193,798 bp), R. mole (MZ073672, 197,877 bp), R. platypodum (MT985162, 201,047 bp), R. griersonianum (MT533181, 206,467 bp), R. datiandingense (MW381788, 207,311 bp), and R. kawakamii (MW762686, 230,777 bp) (Shen et al, 2020;Xu et al, 2021;Liu et al, 2020b;Liu et al, 2021;Ma et al, 2021;Liu et al, 2020a;Wang et al, 2021b;Wang et al, 2021a). Considering the numerous Rhododendron species, the cp genome data of Rhododendron spp.…”

The complete chloroplast genome of Rhododendron huadingense (Ericaceae)

“… 2021 ), and R. molle (Liu et al. 2021 ). In this study, the chloroplast genome sequencing of R. huadingense will be a great help to molecular identification as well as conservation strategy developing for this species.…”

“…According to the previous studies (Liu et al. 2021 ; Zhou et al. 2021 ), the chloroplast genomes of 15 related species were chosen for the phylogenetic analysis.…”