The complete chloroplast genome of the invasive alligator weed Alternanthera philoxeroides (Caryophyllales: Amaranthaceae)

Abstract

Alternanthera philoxeroides is an invasive amphibious herbaceous clonal plant. The chloroplast (cp) genome of A. philoxeroides is 151,972 bp long. It encodes a set of 111 unique genes (including 78 protein coding, 29 tRNA, and four rRNA genes). Besides, 11 genes (atpF, ndhA, ndhB, rpoC1, rps12, rps16, trnA-TGC, trnI-GAT, trnK-TTT, trnL-TAA, and trnV-TAC) possess a single intron, and another two genes (clpP and ycf3) have double introns. A neighbour-joining (NJ) phylogenetic analysis revealed that the cp genome of A. philoxeroides is closely related to that of Amaranthus tricolor, Amaranthus hybridus, Amaranthus caudatus, and Amaranthus hypochondriacus.

Keywords

• alternanthera philoxeroides
• chloroplast genome
• invasive plant
• phylogenetic analysis