The complete chloroplast genome of Aster altaicus Willd. (Asteraceae: Aster) and phylogenetic analysis

Aster altaicus Willd. is an important medicinal plant and can also be used as a forage grass. To better understand the diversity and phylogeny between A. altaicus and other Aster species, we sequenced and annotated the complete chloroplast genome of A. altaicus by using the Illumina Hiseq 2500 platform. This complete chloroplast genome is 152,473 bp long and the GC content is 37.3% presented a negative AT-skew (-0.002) and a positive GC-skew (0.003). The genome contains a large single-copy region (LSC) of 84,235 bp, a small single-copy region (SSC) of 18,212 bp, which separated by a pair of inverted repeat regions (IRA and IRB) of 25,013 bp. Moreover, 129 genes were found in the chloroplast of A. altaicus, including 85 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 36 transfer RNA genes (tRNAs), 8 ribosomal RNA unit genes (rRNAs). Phylogenetic analysis showed that A. altaicus was more closely related to A. altaicus and A. altaicus var. uchiyamae. This study lays the foundation for further studies on the evolution and phylogeny of Aster.