DNA transfer from chloroplasts and mitochondria to the nucleus is ongoing in eukaryotes but the mechanisms involved are poorly understood. Mitochondrial DNA was observed to integrate into the nuclear genome through DNA double-strand break repair in Nicotiana tabacum. Here, 14 nuclear insertions of chloroplast DNA (nupts) that are unique to Oryza sativa subsp. indica were identified. Comparisons...

A major obstacle in the culture-independent estimation of the abundance of bacteria associated with plants is contamination with plant organelles, which precludes the use of universal rRNA bacterial primers in quantitative PCR applications. We present here a PCR-based method that allows a priori determination of the degree of chloroplast and mitochondrial contamination in DNA samples from plant...

The phylogenetic relationships within the genus Betula (Betulaceae) were investigated using a part of the nuclear ADH gene and DNA sequences of the chloroplast matK gene with parts of its flanking regions. Two well-supported phylogenetic groups could be identified in the chloroplast DNA sequence: one containing the three American species B. lenta, B. alleghaniensis, and B. papyrifera and the ot...

An ultraviolet-induced cytoplasmic mutant (G(1)BU) of Euglena gracilis Klebs var. bacillaris Pringsheim is described. G(1)BU, in addition to being golden in color and containing smaller amounts of chlorophyll than wild type when grown in the light, is a regulatory constitutive mutant for the light-inducible chloroplast isoleucine and methionine tRNAs; i.e., these two tRNAs are present in dark-g...

Glutaraldehyde-fixed strips of fully differentiated leaves of Beta vulgaris L. were treated with proteases. With this method it is possible to display DNA-regions in chloroplasts selectively and to reconstruct them from serial sections. As in young plastids, the DNA in mature plastids is also distributed within several regions which are separated rather clearly by thylakoids. The number of such...

In maize (Zea mays L.), chloroplast development progresses from the basal meristem to the mature leaf tip, and light is required for maturation to photosynthetic competence. During chloroplast greening, it was found that chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) is extensively degraded, falling to undetectable levels in many individual chloroplasts for three maize cultivars, as well as Zea mexicana (the ancestor...

this study represents phylogenetic analyses of two woody polygonaceous genera calligonum and pteropyrum using both chloroplast fragment (trnl-f) and the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (nrdna its) sequence data. all inferred phylogenies using parsimony and bayesian methods showed that calligonum and pteropyrum are both monophyletic and closely related taxa. they have no affinity w...

The cultivated date palm is the most agriculturally important species of the Arecaceae family. The standard chloroplast DNA barcode for land plants recommended by the Consortium for the Barcode of Life plant working group needs to be evaluated for a wide range of plant species. Therefore, we assessed the potential of the matK and rpoC1 markers for the authentication of date cultivars. There is ...

The optimum conditions for in vitro iodination of RNAs have been established which yield specific radioactivities ranging from 10 x 10(4) to 10 x 10(6) cpm/mug. A nomogram has been constructed by correlating specific radioactivities of RNA with concentration of KI, RNA, and (125)I. This nomogram can be used to determine the conditions for the desired specific radioactivities for any unknown RNA...

From a high-salt extract of the purified thylakoid membrane, an 18-kD protein was detected. This protein was translated by the chloroplast ribosomes and could form a stable DNA-protein complex with a cloned chloroplast DNA replicative origin [Nie, Z.Q., Chang, D.Y., and Wu, M. (1987) MOI. Gen. Genet. 209, 265-2691. In this paper, the 18-kD protein is linked to frxB, a chloroplast-encoded, ferre...