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Mitochondrial‐encoded endonucleases drive recombination of protein‐coding genes in yeast
Author(s) -
Wu Baojun,
Hao Weilong
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
environmental microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.954
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1462-2920
pISSN - 1462-2912
DOI - 10.1111/1462-2920.14783
Subject(s) - biology , intron , homing endonuclease , genetics , gene , mitochondrial dna , gene conversion , genome , recombination , group ii intron , group i catalytic intron , saccharomyces cerevisiae , rna splicing , rna
Summary Mitochondrial recombination in yeast is well recognized, yet the underlying genetic mechanisms are not well understood. Recent progress has suggested that mobile introns in mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) can facilitate the recombination of their corresponding intron‐containing genes through a mechanism known as intron homing. As many mitochondrial genes lack introns, there is a critical need to determine the extent of recombination and underlying mechanism of intron‐lacking genes. This study leverages yeast mitogenomes to address these questions. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae , the 3′‐end sequences of at least three intron‐lacking mitochondrial genes exhibit elevated nucleotide diversity and recombination hotspots. Each of these 3′‐end sequences is immediately adjacent to or even fused as overlapping genes with a stand‐alone endonuclease. Our findings suggest that SAEs are responsible for recombination and elevated diversity of adjacent intron‐lacking genes. SAEs were also evident to drive recombination of intron‐lacking genes in Lachancea kluyveri , a yeast species that diverged from S. cerevisiae more than 100 million years ago. These results suggest SAEs as a common driver in recombination of intron‐lacking genes during mitogenome evolution. We postulate that the linkage between intron‐lacking gene and its adjacent endonuclease gene is the result of co‐evolution.