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Abstract
Dioscorea nipponica is an important medicinal plant belonging to Dioscoreaceae, a family which is vital for the evolution of monocotyledon. In the present study, the nucleotide sequence of the D. nipponica chloroplast genome was determined. It was an AT-rich (63.3%) chloroplast genome with 152,946 bp in length, containing a pair of 23,113 bp inverted repeats, which were separated by a large and a small single copy region of 83,557 bp and 23,064 bp in length, respectively. It encodes 120 unique genes, including 89 protein-coding genes, 27 tRNA genes and 4 rRNA genes. The predicted gene-coding regions covered 58.7% of the genome sequences. Ten genes contained one intron, while two genes had two introns. Phylogenetic analyses showed the present chloroplast genome can be used as a potential supper barcode to distinguish D. nipponica from its closely related species. Furthermore, the chloroplast genome provides a molecular base for the next investigation on this important medicinal species.
Declaration of interest
This work was supported by National Nature Science Foundation of China (81403046) and Grants from China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences (Z2013363-865).