The plastid chromosome of spinach (Spinacia oleracea): complete nucleotide sequence and gene organization.
The chloroplast chromosome of spinach (Spinacia oleracea) is a double-stranded circular DNA molecule of 150,725 nucleotide pairs. A comparison of this chromosome with those of the three other autotrophic dicotyledons for which complete DNA sequences of plastid chromosomes are available confirms a conserved overall structure. Three classes of open reading frames were distinguished: (1) genes of known function which include 108 unique loci, (2) three hypothetical chloroplast reading frames (ycfs) that are highly conserved interspecifically, and (3) species-specific or rapidly diverging 'open reading frames'. A detailed transcript study of one of the latter (ycf15) shows that these loci may be transcribed, but do not constitute protein-coding genes.
Schmitz-Linneweber
C
C
Botanisches Institut der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, Germany.
Maier
R M
RM
Alcaraz
J P
JP
Cottet
A
A
Herrmann
R G
RG
Mache
R
R
D001483:Base Sequence; D018742:DNA, Chloroplast / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D004270:DNA, Circular / Q000235:genetics; D017343:Genes, Plant / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016366:Open Reading Frames / Q000235:genetics; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D018724:Spinacia oleracea / Q000235:genetics*
D018742:DNA, Chloroplast; D004270:DNA, Circular