Plastome Analysis of Medicinal Plant Tinospora cordifolia for Species Identification and Authentication

Abstract

Tinospora cordifolia is an important medicinal plant in ayurvedic system and modern medicine in India and traditionally applied for the treatment of inflammation, allergies and various other ailments. There is no genomic information available for T. cordifolia. In the present study, first time reported complete cp genome of T. cordifolia using high throughput ion torrent genome machine with ion torrent server. The cp genome of T. cordifolia was 150 945 bp in length with GC content of 38.7%, displays a quadripartite structure with two IR regions (IRa: 22 375 bp and IRb: 22 380 bp) that are separated by the LSC region (84 899 bp) and the SSC region (21 291 bp). There are 123 gene, including 85 protein-coding genes, 29 tRNA genes, seven rRNA genes and two pseudogenes (ycf1, rps16). Phylogenetic analysis based on whole cp genome revealed that T. cordifolia is as positioned near to the Menispermum dauricum within the Menispermaceae family. Total 27 SSRs were detected inthe plastomes which include di-, tri-, tetra- penta- and hexanucleotieds repeats. Further, compared with cp genome of other species of Menispermaceae it showed ten unique SSRs. Total twenty-five hypervariable regions loci were found in genome. These data could serve as DNA barcodes for species identification.