Climatic changes during the Pleistocene were responsible for dramatic redistributions of plant species worldwide. On rugged southern hemisphere island Tasmania, temperature increases following last glaciation saw upslope migration climatically suitable from lowland refugia and expansion eucalypt-dominated forests woodlands in Central Highlands. We integrate multiple lines evidence (chloroplast ...

Chromatographically distinct isoacceptors of leucyl-tRNA from mature bean leaves were all observed to hybridize with bean chloroplast and nuclear DNA in a ratio similar to that exhibited by the unfractionated leucyl-tRNA. Under the same hybridization conditions, maize tRNA failed to form a stable hybrid with bean DNA, and levels of hybridization between bean-leaf leucyl-tRNA and nuclear or chlo...

We studied the bleached mutant of Euglena gracilis Y3BUD producing carotenoids and rich in chloroplast DNA. This mutant which was produced more than twenty years ago segregates permanently, forming 30 to 50% daughter cells without carotenoids and poor in chloroplast DNA. Electron microscopy and mapping with restriction enzymes show the deletion of a complete ribosomal operon out of the three pr...

Chloroplast biogenesis in angiosperm plants requires the light-dependent transition from an etioplast stage. A key factor in this process is NADPH:protochlorophyllide oxidoreductase A (PORA), which catalyzes the light-dependent reduction of protochlorophyllide to chlorophyllide. In a recent study the chloroplast outer envelope channel OEP16 was described to be involved in etioplast to chloropla...

Aceraceae is a large forest tree family that comprises many economically and ecologically important species. However, because interspecific and/or intraspecific morphological variations result from frequent interspecific hybridization and introgression, it is challenging for non-taxonomists to accurately recognize and identify the tree species in Aceraceae based on a traditional approach. DNA b...

In the Chlorophyceae, the chloroplast genome is extraordinarily fluid in architecture and displays unique features relative to other groups of green algae. For the Chaetophorales, 1 of the 5 major lineages of the Chlorophyceae, it has been shown that the distinctive architecture of the 223,902-bp genome of Stigeoclonium helveticum is consistent with bidirectional DNA replication from a single o...

Transformation of chloroplast ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes in Chlamydomonas has been achieved by the biolistic process using cloned chloroplast DNA fragments carrying mutations that confer antibiotic resistance. The sites of exchange employed during the integration of the donor DNA into the recipient genome have been localized using a combination of antibiotic resistance mutations in the 16S and ...

The plastid genome from subclover, Trifolium subterraneum, is unusual in a variety of respects, compared with other land-plant chloroplast DNAs. Gene mapping of subclover chloroplast DNA reveals major structural reorganization of the genome. Ten clusters of genes are rearranged in both order and orientation. Eight large inversions are sufficient to explain this reorganization; however, the actu...

BACKGROUND The study of plant populations is greatly facilitated by the deployment of chloroplast DNA markers. Asymmetric inheritance, lower effective population sizes and perceived lower mutation rates indicate that the chloroplast genome may have different patterns of genetic diversity compared to nuclear genomes. Convenient assays that would allow intraspecific chloroplast variability to be ...

The small, relatively constant size and conservative evolution of chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) make it an ideal molecule for tracing the evolutionary history of plant species, At lower taxonomic levels, cpDNA variation is easily and conveniently assayed by comparing restriction patterns and maps, while at higher taxonomic levels, DNA sequencing and inversion analysis are the methods of choice for co...