Comparative Analysis of the Chloroplast Genome of with Other Seven Species of Cucurbitaceae Family.

(SA) is an annual plant from the Cucurbitaceae family that is native to the eastern part of North America. This study aims to assemble and annotate the chloroplast genome of , and then compare it with plastomes of the other species representing the Cucurbitaceae family. The chloroplast genome size of is 154,986 bp, including a pair of inverted repeats (IR) of 26,276 bp, and small single-copy region (SSC) of 18,079 bp and large single-copy region (LSC) of 84,355 bp. Compared to other Cucurbitaceae species, the chloroplast genome of is almost 4222 bp smaller than the plastome . All other seven species have an identical set of tRNA (37), except , which contains 36 tRNA. The IRa/LSC junction in all eight species is located upstream of and downstream of gene. Moreover, variation in the size of the gene and the presence of pseudogene has been seen because of the IR contraction and expansion. The highest number of tandem repeats was seen in , and then . The sequence divergence analysis and topology of the phylogenetic tree indicate that is more similar to genus as compared to genus . These findings contribute to developing the genomic marker for the purpose of future genetic studies.