Open Access

ARTICLE

Comparative Analysis of the Complete Chloroplast Genome Sequences of Four Origin Plants of Lonicerae Flos (Lonicera; Caprifoliaceae)

Sisi Liu¹, Lisi Zhou², Jiaoli Huang¹, Huijie Zeng¹, Zhongquan Qiao¹, Yongxin Li^1,*, Gang Zhang^3,*
1 Hunan Academy of Forestry, Changsha, China
2 Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China
3 College of Pharmacy, Shaanxi Qinling Application Development and Engineering Center of Chinese Herbal Medicine, Shaanxi University of Chinese Medicine, Xi’an, China
* Corresponding Authors: Yongxin Li. Email: ; Gang Zhang. Email:
(This article belongs to this Special Issue: Plant Omics in Challenging Environment)

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany 2022, 91(7), 1503-1516. https://doi.org/10.32604/phyton.2022.020390

Received 20 November 2021; Accepted 21 December 2021; Issue published 14 March 2022

Abstract

Lonicerae Flos (LF) derived from the dried flower buds or opening flowers of four Lonicera plants (Lonicera macranthoides, L. hypoglauca, L. confusa, and L. fulvotnetosa), is a popular traditional Chinese medicine. Because the four origin plants are very similar in morphology, it is difficult to control the quality of LF in actual production. Over the past decade, many reports have pointed out the differences among them, including the botanical characteristics and active ingredients. However, there is still a lack of rapid methods that can be applied to the identification of the four origins. In this study, comparative analysis of the four chloroplast genomes was performed, and they showed low diversity (Pi = 0.00267), three variation hotspots regions (rbcL-accD, rps12-ndhF and rps12-trnN-trnG) were identified as potentially molecular marker of highly informative. Meanwhile, the most obvious difference in SSR comparative analysis is reverse and complement repeats were only identified in L. confusa and L. hypoglauca, respectively. Lastly, the phylogenetic tree showed that L. confusa is more closely related to L. fulvotnetosa, while L. macranthoides is closer to L. hypoglauca. This study systematically revealed the differences among the four chloroplast genomes, and it provides valuable genetic information for identifying the origin of LF.

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Keywords

Lonicerae Flos; Lonicera; chloroplast genome; origin plants; comparative genome

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