The complete chloroplast genome of Orthosiphon aristatus var. aristatus

Orthosiphon aristatus var. aristatus (Vietnamese: Râu Mèo) is also known as cat’s whisker or Java tea is the herbaceous plant of the Lamiaceae family and often found in the subtropical and tropical regions of Asia and Australia. The plant has been exploited as a valuable medicinal herb in traditional medicine treatments for kidney stones, diuresis, diabetes, hypertension, jaundice, epilepsy, etc. in many countries. Despite its popularity and high commercial value, the genetic materials of Orthosiphon aristatus var. aristatus, including nuclear, chloroplast, and mitochondrial genomes, have not been sequenced and analyzed until recently. In this study, we aimed to study the structure and characteristics of Orthosiphon aristatus var. aristatus’ chloroplast genome and reconstruct the phylogenetic tree of the Nepetoideae subfamily by using Illumina Next-generation Sequencing and bioinformatics software. The chloroplast of this species was 152,170 base-pair- long, with a typical quadripartite structure (a large single copy (LSC), a small single copy (SSC), and a pair of inverted repeats (IRs). The guanine and cytosine (GC) content of the whole plastid is 37.9%. Regarding its gene content, there are 114 genes in total (79 protein-coding genes, 31 tRNA, and four rRNA), 20 of which are found in the inverted repeats, and thus have two copies. No contraction nor expansion was recognized in the plastid, as its size lay in the average range of most land plants. Among the coding regions, ycf1, ndhF, rpl32, and ccsA showed the highest nucleotide diversity (Pi value >0.05). The phylogenetic tree reconstructed based on the coding sequences (CDS) indicates the close relationship between Orthosiphon aristatus var. aristatus and species in the Ocimum genus. The results of this study contribute to the knowledge of medicinal plants’ genetic materials and phylogenetic and evolutionary research.