Is plant mitochondrial RNA editing a source of phylogenetic incongruence? An answer from in silico and in vivo data sets

Background: In plant mitochondria, the post-transcriptional RNA editing process converts C to U at a number of specific sites of the mRNA sequence and usually restores phylogenetically conserved codons and the encoded amino acid residues. Sites undergoing RNA editing evolve at a higher rate than sites not modified by the process. As a result, editing sites strongly affect the evolution of plant mitochondrial genomes, representing an important source of sequence variability and potentially informative characters. To date no clear and convincing evidence has established whether or not editing sites really affect the topology of reconstructed phylogenetic trees. For this reason, we investigated here the effect of RNA editing on the tree building process of twenty different plant mitochondrial gene sequences and by means of computer simulations. Results: Based on our simulation study we suggest that the editing `noise' in tree topology inference is mainly manifested at the cDNA level...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: BMCBI
• Authors: Ernesto Picardi, Carla Quagliariello
• Keywords: BMCBI 2008, Editing Percentage, Mitochondrial Gene Sequence, Plant Mitochondrial Genes