Affiliation:
1. Key Laboratory of Resource Biology and Biotechnology in Western China, Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Northwest University, Xi’an, China
2. Early Life Institute, State Key Laboratory of Continental Dynamics, Department of Geology, Northwest University, Xi’an, China
Abstract
Gymnosperms such as ginkgo, conifers, cycads, and gnetophytes are vital components of land ecosystems, and they have significant economic and ecologic value, as well as important roles as forest vegetation. In this study, we investigated the structural variation and evolution of chloroplast transfer RNAs (tRNAs) in gymnosperms. Chloroplasts are important organelles in photosynthetic plants. tRNAs are key participants in translation where they act as adapter molecules between the information level of nucleic acids and functional level of proteins. The basic structures of gymnosperm chloroplast tRNAs were found to have family-specific conserved sequences. The tRNAΨ -loop was observed to contain a conforming sequence, i.e., U-U-C-N-A-N2. In gymnosperms, tRNAIlewas found to encode a “CAU” anticodon, which is usually encoded by tRNAMet. Phylogenetic analysis suggested that plastid tRNAs have a common polyphyletic evolutionary pattern, i.e., rooted in abundant common ancestors. Analyses of duplication and loss events in chloroplast tRNAs showed that gymnosperm tRNAs have experienced little more gene loss than gene duplication. Transition and transversion analysis showed that the tRNAs are iso-acceptor specific and they have experienced unequal evolutionary rates. These results provide new insights into the structural variation and evolution of gymnosperm chloroplast tRNAs, which may improve our comprehensive understanding of the biological characteristics of the tRNA family.
Funder
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Shaanxi Science and Technology Innovation Team
Public health specialty in the Department of traditional Chinese Medicine
Open Foundation of Key Laboratory of Resource Biology and Biotechnology in Western China
Subject
General Agricultural and Biological Sciences,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine,General Neuroscience
Cited by
4 articles.
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