Intraspecific variations among the chloroplast genomes of Artemisia scoparia (asteraceae) from Pakistan and China

Abstract

Artemisia scoparia Waldst. et Kitam. is an important medicinal plant of Asteraceae. Inconsistent pharmacological activities have been reported for A. scoparia from China and South Asia. As the first step to understand the underlying genetic basis, we sequences the chloroplast genome for A. scoparia collected from China and compared with one collected from Pakistan. The circular chloroplast genome of A. scoparia is 151,008 bp long, which is slightly shorter than that of A. scoparia-Pakistan. It encodes 87 protein-coding genes, 8 ribosomal RNA genes, and 37 transfer RNAs. The overall GC content of the genome is 37.47%. Comparing with A. scoparia from China and Pakistan identified the inversion of the SSC region. Besides, a total of 79 single nucleotide polymorphisms and 39 insertions and deletions were identified. The results can be used to develop molecular markers to distinguish A. scoparia from different geographical areas that might have variable bioactivities.