Chloroplast genome analysis of agave americana L.

Agave americana L. is a large perennial evergreen herb in the family Agaveceae, and is a tropical and subtropical leaf fiber plant. In this study, we successfully sequenced and assembled its chloroplast genome, which was 157,419bp in length with 37.81% GC content. The genome consisted of a large single-copy region (LSC,86,018bp), a pair of inverted repeat regions (IR,26,84bp) and a small single-copy region (SSC,18,233bp). In addition, 87 protein-coding genes, 46 tRNAs and 4 rRNAs were annotated on the chloroplast genome, and the results indicated that flax and Agave attenuata were clustered together. The results showed that agave americana L. was most closely related to Agave attenuata and clustered into a large group with Agave virginica.