Molecules, Vol. 24, Pages 261: The Complete Plastid Genome of Magnolia zenii and Genetic Comparison to Magnoliaceae species (Molecules)

Magnolia zenii is a critically endangered species known from only 18 trees that survive on Baohua Mountain in Jiangsu province, China. Little information is available regarding its molecular biology, with no genomic study performed on M. zenii until now. We determined the complete plastid genome of M. zenii and identified microsatellites. Whole sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis using BI and ML methods were also conducted. The plastome of M. zenii was 160,048 bp long with 39.2% GC content and included a pair of inverted repeats (IRs) of 26,596 bp that separated a large single-copy (LSC) region of 88,098 bp and a small single-copy (SSC) region of 18,757 bp. One hundred thirty genes were identified, of which 79 were protein-coding genes, 37 were transfer RNAs, and eight were ribosomal RNAs. Thirty seven simple sequence repeats (SSRs) were also identified. Comparative analyses of genome structure and sequence data of closely-related species revealed five mutation hotspots, useful for future phylogenetic research. Magnolia zenii was placed as sister to M. biondii with strong support in all analyses. Overall, this study providing M. zenii genomic resources will be beneficial for the evolutionary study and phylogenetic reconstruction of Magnoliaceae.