Complete Chloroplast Genome Features of Dendrocalamus farinosus and Its Comparison and Evolutionary Analysis with Other Bambusoideae Species

Dendrocalamus farinosus is one of the essential bamboo species mainly used for food and timber in the southwestern region of China. In this study, the complete chloroplast (cp) genome of D. farinosus is sequenced, assembled, and the phylogenetic relationship analyzed. The cp genome has a circular and quadripartite structure, has a total length of 139,499 bp and contains 132 genes: 89 protein-coding genes, eight rRNAs and 35 tRNAs. The repeat analyses showed that three types of repeats (palindromic, forward and reverse) are present in the genome. A total of 51 simple sequence repeats are identified in the cp genome. The comparative analysis between different species belonging to Dendrocalamus revealed that although the cp genomes are conserved, many differences exist between the genomes. The analysis shows that the non-coding regions were more divergent than the coding regions, and the inverted repeat regions are more conserved than the single-copy regions. Moreover, these results also indicate that rpoC2 may be used to distinguish between different bamboo species. Phylogenetic analysis results supported that D. farinosus was closely related to D. latiflorus. Furthermore, these bamboo species’ geographical distribution and rhizome types indicate two evolutionary pathways: one is from the tropics to the alpine zone, and the other is from the tropics to the warm temperate zone. Our study will be helpful in the determination of the cp genome sequences of D. farinosus, and provides new molecular data to understand the Bambusoideae evolution.