Possible Loss of the Chloroplast Genome in the Parasitic Flowering Plant Rafflesia lagascae (Rafflesiaceae)

Authors

Jeanmaire Molina
Khaled M Hazzouri
Daniel Nickrent
Matt Geisler, Southern Illinois University CarbondaleFollow
Rachel S Meyer
Melissa M. Pentony
Jonathan M. Flowers
Pieter Pelser
Julie Barcelona
Samuel Alan Inovejas
Iris Uy
Wei Yuan
Olivia Wilkins
Claire-Iphanise Michel
Selina Locklear
Gisela P. Concepcion
Michael D Purugganan

Comments

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com

Abstract

Rafflesia is a genus of holoparasitic plants endemic to Southeast Asia that has lost the ability to undertake photosynthesis. With short-read sequencing technology, we assembled a draft sequence of the mitochondrial genome of Rafflesia lagascae Blanco, a species endemic to the Philippine island of Luzon, with ∼350× sequencing depth coverage. Using multiple approaches, however, we were only able to identify small fragments of plastid sequences at low coverage depth (

Recommended Citation

Molina, Jeanmaire, Hazzouri, Khaled M, Nickrent, Daniel, Geisler, Matt, Meyer, Rachel S, Pentony, Melissa M., Flowers, Jonathan M., Pelser, Pieter, Barcelona, Julie, Inovejas, Samuel A., Uy, Iris, Yuan, Wei, Wilkins, Olivia, Michel, Claire-Iphanise, Locklear, Selina, Concepcion, Gisela P. and Purugganan, Michael D. "Possible Loss of the Chloroplast Genome in the Parasitic Flowering Plant Rafflesia lagascae (Rafflesiaceae)." Molecular biology and evolution 31, No. 4 (Jan 2014): 793-803. doi:10.1093/molbev/msu051.