Characterization of the complete plastid genome sequence of the endangered species Bretschneidera sinensis

Bretschneideraceae is a specific single species family, and Bretschneidera sinensis is listed as ‘Endangered’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. As a relict plant of the Tertiary, B. sinensis is significant for the study of ancient geography and climate change. B. sinensis is endemic to China and is sporadically distributed in Thailand and Vietnam. In this study, the complete plastid genome sequence of B. sinensis was characterized from Illumina paired-end sequencing data. The whole plastome is 154,279 bp in length, consisting of a pair of inverted repeat (IR) regions of 26,432 bp, one large single copy (LSC) region of 83,688 bp and one small single copy (SSC) region of 17,727 bp. The genome contains 112 genes, including 78 protein-coding genes, 4 ribosomal RNA genes and 30 transfer RNA genes. Among these 112 genes, 14 contain one intron, while only two genes harbor two introns. The overall GC content of the whole plastome is 37.4%, and the corresponding values of the IR, LSC and SSC regions are 42.7, 35.3 and 31.5%, respectively.