Punctuated plastome reduction and host-parasite horizontal gene transfer in the holoparasitic plant genus Aphyllon.

ABSTRACT: Foundational studies of chloroplast genome (plastome) evolution in parasitic plants have focused on broad trends across large clades, particularly among the Orobanchaceae, a species-rich and ecologically diverse family of root parasites. However, the extent to which such patterns and processes of plastome evolution, such as stepwise gene loss following the complete loss of photosynthesis (shift to holoparasitism), are detectable at shallow evolutionary time scale is largely unknown. We used genome skimming to assemble eight chloroplast genomes representing complete taxonomic sampling of Aphyllon sect. Aphyllon, a small clade within the Orobanchaceae that evolved approximately 6 Ma, long after the origin of holoparasitism. We show substantial plastome reduction occurred in the

SUBMITTER: Schneider AC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6170807 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature