Sequencing of Capsicum Organellar Genomes

Abstract

In early 1980s, DNA sequencing was heralded as a game changer in the way we look at biology. However, the cost of operation and scale of handling large contiguous reads were the biggest bottleneck. Therefore, research and experimentation were coerced to relatively simpler genomes of prokaryotes and organelle genomes of eukaryotes such as mitochondria and a diverse range of plastid genomes. Mitochondria and chloroplast are two important cell organelles which have their own genetic material called as mitogenome and plastome, respectively. They are believed to be an endosymbiotic relic of a free-living organism in the past, but now tightly integrated into their host cells. One exclusive property about organellar genome is maternal inheritance, which ensures that genome remains highly compact with almost null genome expansion by crossing over and external evolutionary forces. They show very low genome diversity yet high adaptability to host environment, which has intrigued researchers to understand plant kingdom through organelles including Solanaceae plants. Capsicum is one of the most important vegetable crops of Solanaceae family. In this chapter, an effort was made to enumerate the sequencing and their derived information of chloroplast and mitochondria genomes of different Capsicum species. Till date, a total of 13 accessions of whole chloroplast genome sequences (the size of which ranges from 156,807 to 157,145 bp) have been reported from Capsicum annuum, C. chinense, C. frutescens, C. tovarii, C. chacoense, C. baccatum, C. galapagoense, C. eximium and C. lycianthoids, and only one mitochondrial genome sequence of C. annuum has been reported.