Analyses of foreign plastid sequences in plant mitochondria
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Date
2015-10-14Author
Carolina Lia Gandini
M. Virginia Sanchez-Puerta
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Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is defined as the exchange of genetic material between species, and is now believed to have a significant role in land plant evolution. In contrast to plastids, plant mitochondrial genomes (mtDNA) present exceptionally high rates of HGT. A “fusion-compatibility model”, in which entire mitochondria are transferred and fused with the native ones, has been recently postulated to explain the mechanisms underlying the HGT process between plants. In recent years, the number of HGT events between mitochondria of unrelated angiosperms has increased considerably. Most cases involve foreign mitochondrial sequences, although a few fragments of plastid origin were reported. We hypothesize that foreign plastid sequences were initially acquired by the native mtDNA via intracellular gene transfer (IGT) and then horizontally transferred to a distantly related plant following the fusion-compatibility model, rather than directly from a foreign plastid to the mitochondrial genome.