Open Access

ARTICLE

Complete Chloroplast Genome of Pyrola japonica: Characterization and Phylogenetic Analysis

Chayanee Chairattanawat¹, Junghwa Kang², Jaewook Kim^1,*, Bae Young Choi^3,*

1 Department of Biology Education, Korea National University of Education, Cheongju, Republic of Korea
2 Hantaek Botanical Garden, Hantaek-ro 2, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea
3 School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Korea National University of Transportation, Chungju, Republic of Korea

* Corresponding Authors: Jaewook Kim. Email: ; Bae Young Choi. Email:

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany 2026, 95(7), 11 https://doi.org/10.32604/phyton.2026.084482

Received 23 April 2026; Accepted 01 June 2026; Issue published 30 July 2026

Abstract

Pyrola japonica, 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 P. japonica. The complete cp genome of P. japonica 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 P. japonica as a sister group of P. decorata, clarifying its evolutionary position within the Pyrola lineage. Relative evolutionary divergence analysis revealed that Pyrola diverged earlier than the other examined Ericaceae taxa. This study provides the first comprehensive cpDNA map for P. japonica, providing essential genetic resources for molecular evolution and species identification.

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Keywords

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Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material File

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