Complete chloroplast genome sequence of Gynostemma pentaphyllum (Cucurbitaceae), a perennial medicinal herb.

Gynostemma pentaphyllum (Cucurbitaceae) is a perennial medicinal herb widely distributed in China. It's well known for its medicinal values due to contains important medicinal components gypenosides. Here, we first report and characterize its complete chloroplast genome based on Illumina paired-end sequencing data. The complete plastid genome was 154,457 bp, which contained inverted repeats (IR) of 25,603 bp separated by a large single-copy (LSC) and a small single copy (SSC) of 84,998 bp and 18,253 bp, respectively. The cpDNA contains 132 genes, comprising 81 protein-coding genes, 37 tRNA genes, 8 rRNA genes and six processed pseudogenes. The overall GC content of the plastome is 37.1%. The phylogenetic analysis of 17 selected chloroplast genomes demonstrated that G. pentaphyllum is closely related to the congeneric G. compressum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]