Abstract
Within the family Solanaceae,
Withania
is a small genus belonging to the Solanoideae subfamily. Here, we report the de novo assembled chloroplast genome sequences of
W. coagulans, W. adpressa
, and
W. riebeckii.
The length of these genomes ranged from 154,162 to 154,364 base pairs (bp). These genomes contained a pair of inverted repeats (IRa and IRb) ranging from 25,029 to 25,071 bp that were separated by a large single-copy (LSC) region of 85,635–85,765 bp and a small single-copy (SSC) region of 18,457–18,469 bp. We analyzed the structural organization, gene content and order, guanine-cytosine content, codon usage, RNA-editing sites, microsatellites, oligonucleotide and tandem repeats, and substitutions of
Withania
plastomes, which revealed high similarities among the species. Comparative analysis among the
Withania
species also highlighted 10 divergent hotspots that could potentially be used for molecular marker development, phylogenetic analysis, and species identification. Furthermore, our analyses showed that even three mutational hotspots (
rps
4-
trn
T,
trn
M-
atp
E, and
rps
15) were sufficient to discriminate the
Withania
species included in current study.