An Alternative Self-Splicing Intron Lifecycle Revealed by Dynamic Intron Turnover in Epichloe Endophyte Mitochondrial Genomes.

ABSTRACT: Self-splicing group I and II introns are selfish genetic elements that are widely yet patchily distributed across the tree of life. Their selfish behavior comes from super-Mendelian inheritance behaviors, collectively called "homing", which allow them to rapidly spread within populations to the specific genomic sites they home into. Observations of self-splicing intron evolutionary dynamics have led to the formulation of an intron "lifecycle" model where, once fixed in a population, the introns lose selection for homing and undergo an extensive period of degradation until their eventual loss. Here, we find that self-splicing introns are common in the mitochondrial genomes of Epichloë species, endophytic fungi that live in symbioses with grasses. However, these introns show substantial intr

SUBMITTER: Chan J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12007492 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature