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Substitutional editing of transcripts from genes of cyanobacterial origin in the dinoflagellate Ceratium horridum
Author(s) -
Zauner Stefan,
Greilinger Doris,
Laatsch Thomas,
Kowallik Klaus V.,
Maier Uwe-G.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
febs letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.593
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1873-3468
pISSN - 0014-5793
DOI - 10.1016/j.febslet.2004.10.060
Subject(s) - minicircle , peridinin , dinoflagellate , biology , plastid , genome , genetics , gene , codon usage bias , pseudogene , ribosomal rna , evolutionary biology , algae , botany , chloroplast , fucoxanthin
Peridinin‐containing dinoflagellates, a group of alveolate organisms, harbour small plasmids called minicircles. As most of these minicircles encode genes of cyanobacterial origin, which are also found in plastid genomes of stramenopiles, they were thought to represent the plastid genome of peridinin‐containing dinoflagellates. The analyses of minicircle derived mRNAs and the 16S rRNA showed that extensive editing of minicircle gene transcripts is common for Ceratium horridum . Posttranscriptional changes occur predominantly by editing A into G, but other types of editing including a previously unreported A to C transversion were also detected. This leads to amino acid changes in most cases or, in one case, to the elimination of a stop‐codon. Interestingly, the edited mRNAs show higher identities to homologous sequences of other peridinin‐containing dinoflagellates than their genomic copy. Thus, our results imply that transcript editing of genes of cyanobacterial origin is species specific in peridinin‐containing dinoflagellates and demonstrate that editing of genes of cyanobacterial origin is not restricted to land plants.