Massive horizontal transfer of mitochondrial genes from diverse land plant donors to the basal angiosperm Amborella.

ABSTRACT: Several plants are known to have acquired a single mitochondrial gene by horizontal gene transfer (HGT), but whether these or any other plants have acquired many foreign genes is entirely unclear. To address this question, we focused on Amborella trichopoda, because it was already known to possess one horizontally acquired gene and because it was found in preliminary analyses to contain several more. We comprehensively sequenced the mitochondrial protein gene set of Amborella, sequenced a variable number of mitochondrial genes from 28 other diverse land plants, and conducted phylogenetic analyses of these sequences plus those already available, including the five sequenced mitochondrial genomes of angiosperms. Results indicate that Amborella has acquired one or more copies of 20 of its 31

SUBMITTER: Bergthorsson U 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC539785 | biostudies-literature | 2004 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature