The complete chloroplast genome of Dicliptera tinctoria (Nees) Kostel. and comparative analysis of chloroplast genomes in Acanthaceae

Abstract Dicliptera tinctoria is a member of Acanthaceae, which has a wide distribution and contains potentially medicinal species, and exhibited pharmaceutical potentials. This study sequenced and characterized the complete chloroplast genome of Dicliptera tinctoria. The newly sequenced cpDNA of D. tinctoria was 150,733 bp in length and had a typical quadripartite structure consisting of a large single copy (LSC, 82,895 bp), a small single copy (SSC, 17,249 bp), and two inverted repeat (IRs, 25,295 bp each) regions. This genome also contained 80 protein-coding genes, 30 transfer RNAs, and four ribosomal RNAs, which is identical to other chloroplast genomes in Acanthaceae family. Nucleotides diversity analysis among chloroplast genomes of Acanthaceae species revealed eight hypervariable regions, including trnK_UUU-matK, trnC_GCA-petN, accD, rps12-clpP, rps3-rps19, ycf1-ndhF, ccsA-ndhD, and ycf1. Phylogenetic analysis revealed the paraphyly of Dicliptera species and monophyly in four Acanthaceae subfamilies. These results provide an overview of genomic variations in Acanthaceae chloroplast genome, which is helpful for further genomic studies.