Variation among the Complete Chloroplast Genomes of the Sumac Species Rhus chinensis: Reannotation and Comparative Analysis

The sumac Rhus chinensis Mill. is an economically and ecologically important shrub or tree species in the family of Anacardiaceae with a wide distribution in East to Southeast Asia. We assembled the complete chloroplast genome of 159,187 bp in length and the GC content of 37.8%. The genome encoded 132 genes, including 86 protein-coding genes, 37 tRNA genes, 8 rRNA genes, and 1 pseudogene, and 77 SSRs were identified as well as the interval regions, totaling 46,425 bp in length. The mauve alignment revealed one gene rearrangement among the Rhus species. All the SSRs were divided into five types, most of which consisted of mono- and tri- repeat motifs. Our genome exhibited the longest size and more annotated genes compared to the three other genomes of R. chinensis reported in GenBank. We also discovered some relatively highly variable regions in the complete chloroplast genomes of the Rhus species. The ML phylogenetic analysis of the available chloroplast sequences of the Anacardiaceae well supported the monophyly of each tribe and each genus; the tribe Rhoideae was close to the tribe Anacardiaceae with a high support of 100%, and they then grouped with the tribe Spondiadeae. R. chinensis was sister to R. potaninii, and they then grouped with the species R. typhina.