Piecing together the puzzle of parasitic plant plastome evolution

• Published in: Planta Vol. 234; no. 4; pp. 647 - 656
• Main Author: Krause, Kirsten
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer 01.10.2011; Springer-Verlag; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Agriculture; Biological and medical sciences; Biological Evolution; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Chloroplasts; chromosomes; Chromosomes, Plant; Chromosomes, Plant - genetics; Cuscuta; Cuscuta - genetics; Cuscuta - physiology; DNA-directed RNA polymerase; Ecology; energy; Evolution; Forestry; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; gene deletion; gene targeting; Genes; Genes, Plant; Genes, Plant - genetics; Genetic Structures; genetics; Genome, Plastid; Genome, Plastid - genetics; Genomes; Introns; Introns - genetics; Life Sciences; messenger RNA; Parasitic plants; Parasitism; Parasitism and symbiosis; Photosynthesis; Photosynthesis - genetics; Phylogeny; physiology; Plant Physiological Phenomena; Plant physiology and development; Plant Sciences; Plants; Plants - genetics; plastid DNA; Plastids; Plastids - genetics; Promoter Regions, Genetic; REVIEW; RNA Editing; RNA Editing - genetics; RNA Splicing; RNA Splicing - genetics; Sequence Deletion; Plastome coding capacity; Plastid genome evolution; Gene losses; Intron losses; Parasitic plants; RNA splicing; Genome organization; Splicing; RNA; Loss; Plant biology; Molecular evolution; Plastome; Gene; Intron; Capacity; Coding; Parasitic plant
• ISSN: 0032-0935; 1432-2048; 1432-2048
• DOI: 10.1007/s00425-011-1494-9

The importance of photosynthesis as a mode of energy production has put plastid genomes of plants under a constant purifying selection. This has shaped the characteristic features of plastid genomes across the entire spectrum of photosynthetic plants and has led to a highly uniform and conserved plastid genome with respect to structure, size, gene order, intron and editing site positions and coding capacity. Parasitic species that have dropped photosynthesis as the main energy provider share striking deviations from the plastid genome norm: multiple rearrangements within the circular chromosome, pseudogenization and gene deletions, promoter losses, intron losses as well as the extensive loss of mRNA editing competence have been reported. The collective loss of larger sets of functionally related genes like those for the plastid NADH—dehydrogenase complex and concomitant losses of RNA polymerase genes together with their target promoters point to “domino effects” where an initial loss might have triggered others. An example, which will be discussed in more detail, is the concomitant loss of the intron maturase gene matK and all introns that are supposedly subject to MatK-dependent splicing in two Cuscuta species.