The mitochondrial coxII intron has been lost in two different lineages of dicots and altered in others

• Published in: American journal of botany Vol. 80; no. 10; pp. 1216 - 1223
• Main Authors: Rabbi, M.F, Wilson, K.G
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Ithaca, NY American Botanical Society 01-10-1993; Botanical Society of America; Botanical Society of America, Inc
• Subjects: ADN; BIOCHIMIE; Biological and medical sciences; BIOQUIMICA; Botany; Cellular biology; Corn; Cytochromes; DICOTILEDONEAS; DICOTYLEDONE; DNA; EVOLUCION; EVOLUTION; Exons; Flowers & plants; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; GENE; GENES; Genetic hybridization; GENETICA; GENETIQUE; GENIE GENETIQUE; Genomes; HIBRIDACION; HYBRIDATION; INGENIERIA GENETICA; INSTRUMENT DE MESURE; INSTRUMENTOS DE MEDICION; Introns; MITOCHONDRIE; MITOCONDRIA; MONOCOTILEDONEAS; MONOCOTYLEDONE; Oxidases; Plant cytology, morphology, systematics, chorology and evolution; Plant evolution; Plants; Rice; SECUENCIA NUCLEICA; SEQUENCE NUCLEIQUE; Systematics and Evolution; VARIACION GENETICA; VARIATION GENETIQUE; Molecular hybridization; Splicing; Nucleotide sequence; Cladism; Biological evolution; Mitochondrial DNA; Phylogeny; Polymerase chain reaction; Gene; Intron; Angiospermae; Spermatophyta; Southern blotting
• ISSN: 0002-9122; 1537-2197
• DOI: 10.1002/j.1537-2197.1993.tb15355.x

The central part of the mitochondrial coxII gene was amplified from 38 different dicots and two monocots using polymerase chain reaction. In 30 of the 40 plants studied, the amplified coxII gene-fragment contains an intron, ranging from 930 bp in Capsicum (pepper) in Solanaceae to 1,635 bp in Ampelamus albidans (climbing milkweed) in Asclepiadaceae. The composition of this intron varies as revealed by Southern hybridizations using oligonucleotide probes specific to the coxII intron-regions in maize, wheat, and rice. In the Apocynaceae, Catharanthus roseus (Madagascar periwinkle) and Vinca minor (common periwinkle) lack the coxII intron, while other members of the same family (various Mandevilla species, Nerium oleander and Apocynum cannabinum) and members of the closely related Asclepiadaceae (Asclepias incarnata, Ampelamus albidans and Asclepias tuberosa) retain the intron. Analysis of these data suggest a selective loss of the coxII intron from a plant, ancestral to both Catharanthus and Vinca, after the divergence of the Asclepiadaceae and Apocynaceae. The remaining eight plants from the Brassicaceae, Cucurbitaceae, Fabaceae, and Onagraceae lacking the intron fall into a single group or clade using the phylogenetic tree proposed by Chase et al. (Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden: 80:528-580,1993) based on sequence of the chloroplast rbcL gene