The Highly Reduced Plastome of Mycoheterotrophic Sciaphila (Triuridaceae) Is Colinear with Its Green Relatives and Is under Strong Purifying Selection.

ABSTRACT: The enigmatic monocot family Triuridaceae provides a potentially useful model system for studying the effects of an ancient loss of photosynthesis on the plant plastid genome, as all of its members are mycoheterotrophic and achlorophyllous. However, few studies have placed the family in a comparative context, and its phylogenetic placement is only partly resolved. It was also unclear whether any taxa in this family have retained a plastid genome. Here, we used genome survey sequencing to retrieve plastid genome data for Sciaphila densiflora (Triuridaceae) and ten autotrophic relatives in the orders Dioscoreales and Pandanales. We recovered a highly reduced plastome for Sciaphila that is nearly colinear with Carludovica palmata, a photosynthetic relative that belongs to its sister group in

SUBMITTER: Lam VK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4558852 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature