Mehmood Furrukh, Li Mingai, Bertolli Alessio, Prosser Filippo, Varotto Claudio
Ecogenomics Unit, Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, 38098 San Michele all'Adige, Italy.
National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC), 90133 Palermo, Italy.
Plants (Basel). 2024 Sep 25;13(19):2691. doi: 10.3390/plants13192691.
(plantains, Plantaginaceae) is a cosmopolitan genus including over 250 species used as functional foods, forage, and traditional medicine. Among them, is commonly used as an ingredient of herbal products, but the close similarity to other species can cause misidentifications with potentially serious consequences for product safety/quality. To test the possibility of developing species-specific barcoding markers, we de novo assembled plastome sequences of individuals of , , , and . These genomes were characterized in comparison with both previously sequenced conspecific accessions and other publicly available plastomes, thus providing an assessment of both intraspecific and interspecific genetic variation in plastomes. Additionally, molecular evolutionary analyses indicated that eleven protein-coding genes involved in different plastid functions in plastomes underwent positive selection, suggesting they might have contributed to enhancing species' adaptation during the evolutionary history of . While the most variable mutational hotspots in plastomes were not suitable for the development of species-specific molecular markers, species-specific polymorphisms could discriminate from its closest relatives. Taken together, these results highlight the potential of plastome sequencing for the development of molecular markers to improve the identification of species with relevance in herbal products.
车前属（车前科）是一个世界性的属，包括250多种，用作功能性食品、饲料和传统药物。其中，车前草通常用作草药产品的成分，但与其他车前属物种非常相似，可能会导致误认，对产品安全/质量产生潜在的严重后果。为了测试开发物种特异性条形码标记的可能性，我们从头组装了大车前、平车前、北美车前和海滨车前个体的质体基因组序列。与之前测序的同种材料和其他公开可用的质体基因组相比，对这些基因组进行了特征分析，从而评估了车前属质体基因组的种内和种间遗传变异。此外，分子进化分析表明，车前属质体基因组中涉及不同质体功能的11个蛋白质编码基因经历了正选择，这表明它们可能在车前属的进化历史中有助于增强物种的适应性。虽然车前属质体基因组中最可变的突变热点不适合开发物种特异性分子标记，但物种特异性多态性可以将车前草与其近缘种区分开来。综上所述，这些结果突出了质体基因组测序在开发分子标记以改善草药产品相关物种鉴定方面的潜力。
