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

<i>Aster altaicus</i> Willd. is an important medicinal plant and can also be used as a forage grass. To better understand the diversity and phylogeny between <i>A. altaicus</i> and other <i>Aster</i> species, we sequenced and annotated the complete chloroplast genome of <i>A. altaicus</i> 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 <i>A. altaicus</i>, including 85 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 36 transfer RNA genes (tRNAs), 8 ribosomal RNA unit genes (rRNAs). Phylogenetic analysis showed that <i>A. altaicus</i> was more closely related to <i>A. altaicus</i> and <i>A. altaicus</i> var. uchiyamae. This study lays the foundation for further studies on the evolution and phylogeny of <i>Aster</i>.