Cytoplasmic diversity of the cotton genus as revealed by chloroplast microsatellite markers

The diversity of chloroplast genomes has played an important role, as have those of nuclear and mitochondrial genomes, in the evolution of plants. The sequences of the chloroplast genome supply unsubstituted information for genome analysis. In order to understand the genetic differentiation and relationship of cotton species, we investigated the cytoplasmic diversity of chloroplast genomes in 41 Gossypium accessions with 75 chloroplast simple sequence repeat (cpSSR) markers. The markers were developed from reference sequences of the chloroplast genomes of G. hirsutum and G. barbadense and covered approximately 12.6 kb. Among the 75 markers, 50 were polymorphic, with polymorphism information content values ranging from 0.11 to 0.88. Analyses of the dataset demonstrated that single copy regions were much more informative than inverted repeat regions. The non-coding sequences were well differentiated among these species. For some common cpDNA haplotypes, the E-genome species that may be the oldest of the extant cotton species was deduced. The differentiation of A-genome species lagged behind that of AD-genome species. Neither G. herbaceum nor G. arboreum was the cytoplasmic donor of tetraploid species, strongly suggesting that AD genomes originated from an extinct ancestor of modern A-genome species. We speculate that the genetic differentiation of the chloroplast genome of each cotton species resulted from the dispersal of that species and its adaptations to local ecological conditions. These cpSSR markers provided valuable information to reveal the diversity and differentiation of cotton during evolution.