RESEARCH ARTICLE The distinct plastid genome structure of Maackia fauriei (Fabaceae: Papilionoideae) and its systematic implications for genistoids and tribe Sophoreae In-Su Choi, Byoung-Hee Choi* Department of Biological Sciences, Inha University, Incheon, Republic of Korea *
[email protected] a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 Abstract a1111111111 Traditionally, the tribe Sophoreae sensu lato has been considered a basal but also hetero- a1111111111 geneous taxonomic group of the papilionoid legumes. Phylogenetic studies have placed Sophoreae sensu stricto (s.s.) as a member of the core genistoids. The recently suggested new circumscription of this tribe involved the removal of traditional members and the inclu- sion of Euchresteae and Thermopsideae. Nonetheless, definitions and inter- and intra-taxo- OPEN ACCESS nomic issues of Sophoreae remain unclear. Within the field of legume systematics, the Citation: Choi I-S, Choi B-H (2017) The distinct molecular characteristics of a plastid genome (plastome) have an important role in helping plastid genome structure of Maackia fauriei to define taxonomic groups. Here, we examined the plastome of Maackia fauriei, belonging (Fabaceae: Papilionoideae) and its systematic implications for genistoids and tribe Sophoreae. to Sophoreae s.s., to elucidate the molecular characteristics of Sophoreae. Its gene con- PLoS ONE 12(4): e0173766. https://doi.org/ tents are similar to the plastomes of other typical legumes. Putative pseudogene rps16 of 10.1371/journal.pone.0173766 Maackia and Lupinus species imply independent functional gene loss from the genistoids. Editor: Giovanni G Vendramin, Consiglio Nazionale Our overall examination of that loss among legumes suggests that it is common among all delle Ricerche, ITALY major clades of Papilionoideae.