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An unexpectedly large and loosely packed mitochondrial genome in the charophycean green alga Chlorokybus atmophyticus

BACKGROUND: The Streptophyta comprises all land plants and six groups of charophycean green algae. The scaly biflagellate Mesostigma viride (Mesostigmatales) and the sarcinoid Chlorokybus atmophyticus (Chlorokybales) represent the earliest diverging lineages of this phylum. In trees based on chlorop...

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Autores principales: Turmel, Monique, Otis, Christian, Lemieux, Claude
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2007
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1894977/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17537252
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-8-137
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author Turmel, Monique
Otis, Christian
Lemieux, Claude
author_facet Turmel, Monique
Otis, Christian
Lemieux, Claude
author_sort Turmel, Monique
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The Streptophyta comprises all land plants and six groups of charophycean green algae. The scaly biflagellate Mesostigma viride (Mesostigmatales) and the sarcinoid Chlorokybus atmophyticus (Chlorokybales) represent the earliest diverging lineages of this phylum. In trees based on chloroplast genome data, these two charophycean green algae are nested in the same clade. To validate this relationship and gain insight into the ancestral state of the mitochondrial genome in the Charophyceae, we sequenced the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of Chlorokybus and compared this genome sequence with those of three other charophycean green algae and the bryophytes Marchantia polymorpha and Physcomitrella patens. RESULTS: The Chlorokybus genome differs radically from its 42,424-bp Mesostigma counterpart in size, gene order, intron content and density of repeated elements. At 201,763-bp, it is the largest mtDNA yet reported for a green alga. The 70 conserved genes represent 41.4% of the genome sequence and include nad10 and trnL(gag), two genes reported for the first time in a streptophyte mtDNA. At the gene order level, the Chlorokybus genome shares with its Chara, Chaetosphaeridium and bryophyte homologues eight to ten gene clusters including about 20 genes. Notably, some of these clusters exhibit gene linkages not previously found outside the Streptophyta, suggesting that they originated early during streptophyte evolution. In addition to six group I and 14 group II introns, short repeated sequences accounting for 7.5% of the genome were identified. Mitochondrial trees were unable to resolve the correct position of Mesostigma, due to analytical problems arising from accelerated sequence evolution in this lineage. CONCLUSION: The Chlorokybus and Mesostigma mtDNAs exemplify the marked fluidity of the mitochondrial genome in charophycean green algae. The notion that the mitochondrial genome was constrained to remain compact during charophycean evolution is no longer tenable. Our data raise the possibility that the emergence of land plants was not associated with a substantial gain of intergenic sequences by the mitochondrial genome.
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spelling pubmed-18949772007-06-21 An unexpectedly large and loosely packed mitochondrial genome in the charophycean green alga Chlorokybus atmophyticus Turmel, Monique Otis, Christian Lemieux, Claude BMC Genomics Research Article BACKGROUND: The Streptophyta comprises all land plants and six groups of charophycean green algae. The scaly biflagellate Mesostigma viride (Mesostigmatales) and the sarcinoid Chlorokybus atmophyticus (Chlorokybales) represent the earliest diverging lineages of this phylum. In trees based on chloroplast genome data, these two charophycean green algae are nested in the same clade. To validate this relationship and gain insight into the ancestral state of the mitochondrial genome in the Charophyceae, we sequenced the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of Chlorokybus and compared this genome sequence with those of three other charophycean green algae and the bryophytes Marchantia polymorpha and Physcomitrella patens. RESULTS: The Chlorokybus genome differs radically from its 42,424-bp Mesostigma counterpart in size, gene order, intron content and density of repeated elements. At 201,763-bp, it is the largest mtDNA yet reported for a green alga. The 70 conserved genes represent 41.4% of the genome sequence and include nad10 and trnL(gag), two genes reported for the first time in a streptophyte mtDNA. At the gene order level, the Chlorokybus genome shares with its Chara, Chaetosphaeridium and bryophyte homologues eight to ten gene clusters including about 20 genes. Notably, some of these clusters exhibit gene linkages not previously found outside the Streptophyta, suggesting that they originated early during streptophyte evolution. In addition to six group I and 14 group II introns, short repeated sequences accounting for 7.5% of the genome were identified. Mitochondrial trees were unable to resolve the correct position of Mesostigma, due to analytical problems arising from accelerated sequence evolution in this lineage. CONCLUSION: The Chlorokybus and Mesostigma mtDNAs exemplify the marked fluidity of the mitochondrial genome in charophycean green algae. The notion that the mitochondrial genome was constrained to remain compact during charophycean evolution is no longer tenable. Our data raise the possibility that the emergence of land plants was not associated with a substantial gain of intergenic sequences by the mitochondrial genome. BioMed Central 2007-05-30 /pmc/articles/PMC1894977/ /pubmed/17537252 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-8-137 Text en Copyright © 2007 Turmel et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Turmel, Monique
Otis, Christian
Lemieux, Claude
An unexpectedly large and loosely packed mitochondrial genome in the charophycean green alga Chlorokybus atmophyticus
title An unexpectedly large and loosely packed mitochondrial genome in the charophycean green alga Chlorokybus atmophyticus
title_full An unexpectedly large and loosely packed mitochondrial genome in the charophycean green alga Chlorokybus atmophyticus
title_fullStr An unexpectedly large and loosely packed mitochondrial genome in the charophycean green alga Chlorokybus atmophyticus
title_full_unstemmed An unexpectedly large and loosely packed mitochondrial genome in the charophycean green alga Chlorokybus atmophyticus
title_short An unexpectedly large and loosely packed mitochondrial genome in the charophycean green alga Chlorokybus atmophyticus
title_sort unexpectedly large and loosely packed mitochondrial genome in the charophycean green alga chlorokybus atmophyticus
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1894977/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17537252
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-8-137
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