Contradiction between plastid gene transcription and function due to complex posttranscriptional splicing: an exemplary study of ycf15 function and evolution in angiosperms.

ABSTRACT: Plant chloroplast genes are usually co-transcribed while its posttranscriptional splicing is fairly complex and remains largely unsolved. On basis of sequencing the three complete Camellia (Theaceae) chloroplast genomes for the first time, we comprehensively analyzed the evolutionary patterns of ycf15, a plastid gene quite paradoxical in terms of its function and evolution, along the inferred angiosperm phylogeny. Although many species in separate lineages including the three species reported here contained an intact ycf15 gene in their chloroplast genomes, the phylogenetic mixture of both intact and obviously disabled ycf15 genes imply that they are all non-functional. Both intracellular gene transfer (IGT) and horizontal gene transfer (HGT) failed to explain such distributional anomalies

SUBMITTER: Shi C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3601113 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature