Abstract Gynostemma yixingense, an important medicinal member of the Cucurbitaceae family, is an endemic herbaceous species distributed in East China. It is morphologically similar to the plants in the same genus, which resulted in some confusion in identification and application. Meanwhile, there are still some controversies in taxonomy. Herein, the complete chloroplast genome sequence of G. yixingense was obtained by Illumina paired-end sequencing technology and compared to other chloroplast genome sequences of congeneric species. The complete chloroplast genome of G. yixingense is 157,910 bp in length with 36.94% GC content and contains a large single-copy (LSC) region of 86,791 bp, a small single-copy (SSC) region of 18,635 bp and a pair of inverted repeat (IR) regions of 26,242 bp. The whole genome contains 133 unique genes, including 87 protein-coding genes, 37 tRNA genes, eight rRNA genes and one pseudogene. In addition, 74 simple sequence repeats (SSRs) were identified, most of which were A/T rich. The phylogenetic analysis indicated that G. yixingense had the closest relationship to G. laxiflorum. The result of this study provided an important theoretical basis for chloroplast genome and phylogenetic analysis of G. yixingense.

中文翻译：

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宜兴绞股蓝叶绿体基因组全序列及与同类植物的比较分析

摘要 宜兴绞股蓝是葫芦科植物的重要药用植物，是分布于华东地区的特有草本植物。它在形态上与同属植物相似，造成了鉴定和应用上的一些混乱。同时，分类学上仍存在一些争议。本文通过Illumina双端测序技术获得了宜兴G. yishingense完整的叶绿体基因组序列，并与同属物种的其他叶绿体基因组序列进行了比对。G. yixingense 完整叶绿体基因组长度为 157,910 bp，GC 含量为 36.94%，包含 86,791 bp 的大单拷贝 (LSC) 区域、18,635 bp 的小单拷贝 (SSC) 区域和一对倒置序列。 26,242 bp 的重复 (IR) 区域。全基因组包含133个独特基因，其中包括87个蛋白质编码基因、37个tRNA基因、8个rRNA基因和1个假基因。此外，还鉴定了 74 个简单序列重复 (SSR)，其中大部分富含 A/T。系统发育分析表明，宜兴棉与松花棉的亲缘关系最近。本研究结果为宜兴棉的叶绿体基因组和系统发育分析提供了重要的理论依据。