Unraveling the mitochondrial genome of the medicinal Chinese motherwort (Leonurus japonicus, Lamiaceae): structural dynamics, organelle-to-nuclear gene transfer, and evolutionary implications

作者：Xinyu Bai, Tingting Zhu, H. S. Chen, Xiao Qun Wang, Jing Liu, Yuqing Feng, Yanbo Huang, Joongku Lee, Goro Kokubugata, Zhe‐Chen Qi, Xiao‐Ling Yan · 发表于：Frontiers in Plant Science · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.3389/fpls.2025.1546449 · 被引用次数：6 · 研究领域：Plant Ecology and Taxonomy Studies、Photosynthetic Processes and Mechanisms、Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies

Introduction Leonurus japonicus (Chinese motherwort) is a medicinal Lamiaceae species renowned for its pharmacological compounds, yet its mitochondrial genome remains unexplored. Elucidating mitogenomic structure and evolution can inform plant genetics, phylogenetics, and molecular breeding. Methods We assembled the complete mitochondrial genome of L. japonicus using a combination of Oxford Nanopore long reads and Illumina short reads. Three assembly strategies— de novo assembly with PMAT and Flye, and hybrid assembly with Unicycler—were integrated and validated via read mapping and comparison to reference mitogenomes ( Salvia miltiorrhiza, Arabidopsis thaliana, Liriodendron tulipifera ). Annotation employed GeSeq, tRNAscan-SE, and manual curation. Repeat elements (SSR, tandem, dispersed) were identified with MISA, TRF, and REPuter; plastid‐to‐mitochondrion transfers (MTPTs) were detected by BLASTN against the assembled plastome; and RNA editing sites were predicted using Deepred-mt. Phylogenetic and synteny analyses were conducted with IQ-TREE, MAFFT alignments of 24 conserved PCGs, and NGenomeSyn visualization. Results The circular mitogenome spanned 384,199 bp (45.1% GC) and encoded 35 protein-coding genes, 11 tRNAs, and 3 rRNAs. We detected 241 SSRs, 13 tandem repeats, and 90 dispersed repeats, indicating extensive recombination potential. Thirty-one MTPTs totaling 24,818 bp (6.46% of the mitogenome) were identified. Comparative analyses revealed strong purifying selectio...