More than a spiny morphology: plastome variation in the prickly pear cacti (Opuntieae).

ABSTRACT:

Background

Plastid genomes (plastomes) have long been recognized as highly conserved in their overall structure, size, gene arrangement and content among land plants. However, recent studies have shown that some lineages present unusual variations in some of these features. Members of the cactus family are one of these lineages, with distinct plastome structures reported across disparate lineages, including gene losses, inversions, boundary movements or loss of the canonical inverted repeat (IR) region. However, only a small fraction of cactus diversity has been analysed so far.

Methods

Here, we investigated plastome features of the tribe Opuntieae, the remarkable prickly pear cacti, which represent one of the most diverse and important lineages of Cactaceae. We assembled de

SUBMITTER: Kohler M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10799996 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature