Chloroplast Genome Sequences of 10 Iris Species determined by High-Throughput Sequencing

Iris species comprises group of economically important horticultural crops being used in landscape gardening, herbal medicine, etc. Complete chloroplast genome sequences were determined for the 9 Iris species with one Belamcanda chinensis using next generation sequencing to better understand molecular basis of Iris chloroplast. About 0.9~2.3 Gbp genomic sequences were generated from each species using Illumina MiSeq platform. Chloroplast genome sequences were extracted and assembled into 150,955 bp ~ 153,083 bp in length. All the cp genomes exhibited typical quardripartite structures consisting of LSC (large single copy), SSC (small single copy), and a pair of intervening IRs (inverted repeats). Sequence variations among the 14 available cp genomes of Iris species were analyzed by multiple alignment and mVISTA. Sequence identity was 0.956 on average among taxa ranged from 0.935 to 0.999. Sixteen highly variable regions with indels and tandem repeats were chosen for molecular markers to distinguish each species. These data will serve as valuable resources for studying genetic diversity and for refining phylogenetic relationships and evolution of Iris species.