Peculiarities of the inverted repeats in the complete chloroplast genome of Lindau.

Lindau belongs to the family It is an antiviral herb that can be used to prevent Influenza virus infections in the border areas between China and Vietnam. Local people call it 'Purple Ban-lan-gen' because its root is very similar to that of (Nees) Kuntze, which is called 'Southern Ban-lan-gen' and is listed in Chinese Pharmacopeia. The two species have been used interchangeably locally. However, their pharmacological equivalence has caused concern for years. We have sequenced the chloroplast genome of previously. In this study, we sequenced the complete chloroplast genome sequence of to preform in-depth comparative genetic analysis of the two species. The chloroplast genome of is a circular DNA molecule with a total length of 144,591 bp and encodes 84 protein-coding, 8 ribosomes, and 37 transfer RNA genes. The chloroplast genome has a conservative quadripartite structure, including a large single-copy (LSC) region, a small single-copy (SSC) region, and a pair of inverted repeat (IR) regions, with lengths of 92,068 bp, 17,767 bp, and 17,378 bp, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis confirmed that is closely related to the . Compared with other species from Acanthaceae, has a significantly shortened IR region, suggesting the occurrence of IR contraction events. This study will help future taxonomic, evolutionary, phylogenetic, and bioprospecting studies of the sizeable genus, which contains over 400 species.