Ancient Nuclear Plastid DNA in the Yew Family (Taxaceae)

Plastid-to-nucleus DNA transfer provides a rich genetic resource to the complexity of plant nuclear genome architecture. To date, the evolutionary route of nuclear plastid DNA (nupt) remain unknown in conifers. We have sequenced the complete plastomes of two yews, Amentotaxus formosana and Taxus mairei (Taxaceae of coniferales). Our comparative genomic analyses recovered an evolutionary scenario for plastomic reorganization from ancestral to extant plastomes in the three sampled Taxaceae genera, Amentotaxus, Cephalotaxus, and Taxus. Specific primers were designed to amplify nonsyntenic regions between ancestral and extant plastomes, and 12.6 kb of nupts were identified based on phylogenetic analyses. These nupts have significantly accumulated GC-to-AT mutations, reflecting a nuclear mutational environment shaped by spontaneous deamination of 5-methylcytosin. The ancestral initial codon of rps8 is retained in the T. nupts, but its corresponding extant codon is mutated and requires C-to-U RNA-editing. These findings suggest that nupts can help recover scenarios of the nucleotide mutation process. We show that the Taxaceae nupts we retrieved may have been retained because the Cretaceous and they carry information of both ancestral genomic organization and nucleotide composition, which offer clues for understanding the plastome evolution in conifers.