Bactris gasipaes Kunth var. gasipaes complete chloroplast genome and phylogenetic analysis

Bactris gasipaes var. gasipaes (Arecaceae, Palmae) is an economically and socially important plant species for populations across tropical South and Central America. It has been domesticated from its wild variety, B. gasipaes var. chichagui, since pre-Columbian times. In this study, we sequenced the complete chloroplast genome of the cultivated variety, B. gasipaes Kunth var. gasipaes and compared it with the published plastome of the wild variety. The chloroplast sequence obtained was 156,580 bp, with 89 genes, 37 tRNAs and 8 rRNAs annotated. The cultivated chloroplast sequence here was highly similar to the wild one. We did, however, identify multiple SNVs, insertions and a resolved region of missing nucleotides. Phylogenetic analysis was carried out across the Arecaceae family and compared to previous reports, resulting in a similar topology. This study is a step forward in understanding the genome evolution of this species.