Plastome reduction and gene content in New World Pilostyles (Apodanthaceae) unveils high similarities to African and Australian congeners

Holoparasitism has led to extreme plastome reduction. Plastomes in the legume holoparasite Pilostyles (Apodanthaceae) are the most reduced in both size and gene content known so far in Embryophytes. Here, we found that the Pilostyles boyacensis plastome, the only American species sequenced so far, is reduced to seven functional genes, accD, rp12, rrn16 (= 16S), rrn23 (=23S), rps3, rps12 and a putative oxidoreductase (PbOx). An additional gene, not annotated in the genome, is actively transcribed between accD and rps12, and by synteny we predict corresponds to rps4. We present data on plastome assembly, transcriptomic data that confirm the transcriptional activity of all genes and describe for the first time six transcript variants of a putative ORF likely having oxidoreductase activity. Our data show that such extreme reduction in P. boyacensis is similar but not identical to that reported in one Australian and one African species of the genus. Such intercontinental similarity suggests that the legume-Pilostyles holoparasitism was already in place during the main African-Australian-South American break-up. We compare plastome content and synteny between the three sequenced species, perform phylogenetic analyses across angiosperms of the six annotated plastome genes, and discuss the odd phylogenetic affinities of 16S and 23S, likely caused by HGT prior the diversification of both legumes and Pilostyles.