TY  - EJOU
AU  - Chairattanawat, Chayanee 
AU  - Kang, Junghwa 
AU  - Kim, Jaewook 
AU  - Choi, Bae Young 

TI  - Complete Chloroplast Genome of <i>Pyrola japonica</i>: Characterization and Phylogenetic Analysis
T2  - Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany

PY  - 
VL  - 
IS  - 
SN  - 1851-5657

AB  - <i>Pyrola japonica</i>, a member of the Ericaceae family, is a significant medicinal herb and a key model organism in mycorrhizal research, yet its chloroplast (cp) genome has not been fully characterized. Therefore, this study aims to sequence and analyze the complete plastid genome of <i>P. japonica</i>. The complete cp genome of <i>P. japonica</i> was determined to be 168,146 bp in length, exhibiting a characteristic quadripartite structure with a total GC content of 35.1%. A total of 136 genes were annotated, comprising 65 protein-coding genes, 45 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, 8 ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes, and 18 pseudogenes. Amino acid analysis of the protein-coding sequences revealed that Leucine was the most abundant, while Cysteine was the least frequent. Structural analysis identified 789 long dispersed repeat sequences and 112 Simple Sequence Repeats (SSRs), with the majority of SSRs distributed across the large single-copy (LSC), inverted repeat (IR), and small single-copy (SSC) regions, respectively. Phylogenetic reconstruction placed <i>P. japonica</i> as a sister group of <i>P. decorata</i>, clarifying its evolutionary position within the <i>Pyrola</i> lineage. Relative evolutionary divergence analysis revealed that <i>Pyrola</i> diverged earlier than the other examined Ericaceae taxa. This study provides the first comprehensive cpDNA map for <i>P. japonica</i>, providing essential genetic resources for molecular evolution and species identification.
KW  - <i>Pyrola japonica</i>; Ericaceae; complete chloroplast genome; cpDNA; evolutionary relationship

DO  - 10.32604/phyton.2026.084482