The Nicotiana Chloroplast Genome

The wide range of application of tobacco as the ideal experimental material for various studies has long been recognized.Therefore，it is not surprising that tobacco has often been referred to as the“E.coli”of the plant kingdom.It possesses many advantages as well as unique features.Tobacco belongs to the genus Nicotiana.There are over 60 species in this genus，many of which can be crossed to produce viable hybrid plants.In fact，interspecific hybridization served as the major force of speciation in this genus.An excellent taxonomic treatment of this genus has been presented by Goodspeed［1］showing Nicotiana to be an exceptionally suitable material for genetic and evolutionary studies.This is demonstrated in the study of ribulose 1，5-bisphosphate carboxylase（RuBPCase）［2，3］.

The Nicotian a system also offers unique opportunities in the study of the genetics and evolution of the chloroplast genome as compared to the other systems such as Oenothera.In Oenothera，chloroplasts frequently exhibit biparental transmission，whereas Nicotiana exhibits strictly maternal inheritance.By taking advantage of the information available on Nicotiana rapid progress has been made in the study of Nicotiana chloroplast genome.A brief summary of such a study is presented below.(https://www.daowen.com)