This paper gave an overview of difference between the mitogenome in a newly sequenced conifer species in comparison to the 5 other gymnosperm species that have been sequenced is the past. Not only did it point out the biases in genome sequencing in plants which are heavily in favour but also made interesting discovering towards the diversity of mitochondrial DNA within gymnosperms.
Mitochondrial DNA is seen as heavily conserved whereas here it was observed that there was a significantly loss of genes. When comparing the Taxus genome to the Cycas mitochondrial genome we can see a loss of eight protein coding genes which have transferred into the nuclear genome. Additionally to this we see a loss of 17 tRNA genes compared to the Cycas mitogenome, and even when you only look at functional tRNA molecules the Taxus mitogenome only codes for 9, compared to a maximum of 23. This is also interesting as there is only 4 shared tRNA gene in all the gymnosperms. There is also a significant difference in amino acids, with 16 in the Cycas mitogenome and only 6 in the Taxus mitochondrial DNA.
This study outlines interesting difference in the mitochondrial genome in plants and illustrates the large amount of diversity within gymnosperms. This clear difference in rates at which genes are lost and transferred in different lineages is particularly interesting, and can indicate to us to be caution when working with working out phylogenies from mitochondrial DNA.
Link to paper: https://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12862-020-1582-1
Jack Richardson - Journal update BMC - Evolutionary Biology
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