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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.

Sec. Plant Bioinformatics

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1587750

This article is part of the Research Topic Evolutionary Dynamics, Functional Variation and Application of Plant Organellar Genome View all 15 articles

Organelle genomes of two Scaevola species, S. taccada and S. hainanensis, provide new insights into evolutionary divergence between Scaevola and its related species

Provisionally accepted
Danni Meng Danni Meng 1Tianxin Lu Tianxin Lu 2Meng He Meng He 1Yuze Ren Yuze Ren 1Mumei Fu Mumei Fu 1Yuxiao Zhang Yuxiao Zhang 1Peifeng Yang Peifeng Yang 1Xinyu Lin Xinyu Lin 1Yong Yang Yong Yang 1Ying Zhang Ying Zhang 3Yuchen Yang Yuchen Yang 4Xiang Jin Xiang Jin 1*
  • 1 Hainan Normal University, Haikou, China
  • 2 Shihezi University, Shihezi, Xinjiang Uyghur Region, China
  • 3 Lingnan Normal University, Zhanjiang, Guangdong, China
  • 4 Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Chloroplast and mitochondrial genomes harbor crucial information that can be utilized for elucidating plant evolution and enviromental adaptation. The organellar genomic characteristics of Goodeniaceae, a sister family to Asteraceae, remain unexplored. Here, using a combination of shortread and long-read sequencing technologies, we successfully assembled the complete organellar genomes of two Goodeniaceae species native to China, Scaevola taccada and S. hainanensis.Chloroplast genome collinearity analysis revealed that Scaevola expanded its genome length through inverted repeat expansion and large single copy fragment duplication, resulting in 181,022 bp (S. taccada) and 182,726 bp (S. hainanensis), ~30 kb increase compared to its related species.Mitochondrial genomes of two Scaevola species exhibit multi-ring topology, forming dual mitochondrial chromosomes of 314,251 bp (S. taccada) and 276,175 bp (S. hainanensis). Sequence variation analysis demonstrated substantial chloroplast sequence divergence (Pi = 0.45) and an increase in gene copy number within the genus. Relative synonymous codon usage (RSCU) analysis revealed that Scaevola chloroplast has a higher bias for A/U-ending codons than mitochondria, with chloroplasts RSCU values ranging from 0.32 to 1.94, whereas mitochondrial RSCU values ranging from 0.38 to 1.62. Phylogenetic analyses support the monophyly of the Asteraceae-Goodeniaceae sister group, whereas the extended evolutionary branches of Scaevola, coupled with mitochondrial collinearity analysis, indicate rapid organellar genome evolution of Scaevola. Organellar-nuclear horizontal gene transfer analysis identified specific increased in the copy numbers of photosynthesisrelated genes and chloroplast-nuclear transfer events in S. taccada. Our study not only provides insights for understanding environmental adaptation mechanisms of coastal plants, but also contributes to elucidating organellar genome evolution in Scaevola and Goodeniaceae.

    Keywords: organelle genomes, Scaevola, Goodeniaceae, Asteraceae, Evolutionary divergence

    Received: 04 Mar 2025; Accepted: 02 Apr 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Meng, Lu, He, Ren, Fu, Zhang, Yang, Lin, Yang, Zhang, Yang and Jin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Xiang Jin, Hainan Normal University, Haikou, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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