Xue Zhang’s research while affiliated with South China Sea Fisheries Research Institute and other places

In the present study, the whole chloroplast (cp) genome of B. marginata was characterized for the first time and genomic features were comparatively analyzed with six relative species in Ulvales. The cp genome of B. marginata was 170, 562 bp in length, exhibiting similar general structure but different in GC content from Ulva and Pseudendoclonium. A total of 113 unique genes were annotated, including 84 protein-coding genes, 26 tRNA and 3 rRNA. A higher level of rearrangements and small syntenic blocks exists comparing the locally collinear blocks. Codon usage analysis identified 30 biased codons with A or U-ended. Sequence analysis detected a total of 23 forward repeats, 18 palindrome repeats, 8 reverse repeats and 38 SSRs with different types. The phylogenetic analyses based on the entire cp genome suggested that Blidingia is closer to Ulva than to Pseudendoclonium. The entire cp genome of Blidingia provides a valuable resource for further studies.