Abstract
BACKGROUND: Malvaceae is an economically important plant family of 4,225 species in nine subfamilies. Phylogenetic relationships among the nine subfamilies have always been controversial, especially for Brownlowioideae, whose phylogenetic position remains largely unknown due to the lack of samples in previous analysis datasets. To greatly clarify the phylogenetic relationship of Malvaceae, we newly sequenced and assembled the plastome of Diplodiscus trichospermus taxonomically located in Brownlowioideae, and downloaded the allied genomes from public database to build a dataset covering all subfamily members of Malvaceae. RESULTS: The annotation results showed that the plastome of Diplodiscus trichospermus has a typical quadripartite structure, comprising 112 unique genes, namely 78 protein-coding genes, 30 tRNA genes and 4 rRNA genes. The total length was 158,570 bp with 37.2% GC content. Based on the maximum likelihood method and Bayesian inference, a robust phylogenetic backbone of Malvaceae was reconstructed. The topology showed that Malvaceae was divided distinctly into two major branches which were previously recognized as Byttneriina and Malvadendrina. In the Malvadendrina clade, Malvoideae and Bombacoideae formed, as always, a close sister clade named as Malvatheca. Subfamily Helicteroideae occupied the most basal position and was followed by Sterculioideae which was sister to the alliance of Malvatheca, Brownlowioideae, Dombeyoideae, and Tilioideae. Brownlowioideae together with the clade comprising Dombeyoideae and Tilioideae formed a sister clade to Malvatheca. In addition, one specific conservation SSR and three specific palindrome sequences were observed in Brownlowioideae. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, the phylogenetic framework of subfamilies in Malvaceae has been resolved clearly based on plastomes, which may contribute to a better understanding of the classification and plastome evolution for Malvaceae.