RNA editing in plant mitochondria

A BASIC principle of molecular biology is that the primary sequence of RNA faithfully reflects the primary sequence of the DNA from which it is transcribed. This concept has been challenged recently by the discovery of RNA editing1, broadly defined as any process that changes the nucleotide sequence of an RNA molecule from that of the DNA template encoding it. Examples of RNA editing (see ref. 2 for review) include the insertion and deletion of uridine residues in mitochondrial messenger RNAs in kinetoplastid protozoa3, the conversion of a cytidine to uridine in mammalian apolipoprotein-B mRNA4–7, and the appearance of two non-templated guanosine residues in a paramyxovirus transcript8, 9. In these cases, RNA editing either re-tailors a non-functional transcript, producing a translatable mRNA10, 11, or modifies an already functional mRNA so that it generates a protein of altered amino-acid sequence4–9. Here we report an editing phenomenon that involves the conversion of cytidine to uridine at multiple positions in the mRNA for subunit II of cytochrome c oxidase in wheat mitochondria. Such RNA editing provides an explanation for apparent coding anomalies in plant mitochondria.

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