Massive horizontal transfer of mitochondrial genes from diverse land plant donors to the basal angiosperm Amborella

Several plants are known to have acquired a single mitochondrial gene by horizontal gene transfer (HGT), but whether these or any other plants have acquired many foreign genes is entirely unclear. To address this question, we focused on Amborella trichopoda, because it was already known to possess o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2004-12, Vol.101 (51), p.17747-17752
Main Authors: Bergthorsson, U, Richardson, A.O, Young, G.J, Goertzen, L.R, Palmer, J.D
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amborella
Angiosperms
Biological Sciences
Chloroplasts
DNA
DNA, Mitochondrial - genetics
Environment
Evolution
Flowers & plants
Gene Transfer, Horizontal - genetics
Genes
Genes, Plant - genetics
Genetics
Genome, Plant
Genomes
Magnoliopsida - genetics
Mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial genes
mitochondrial proteins
Molecular Sequence Data
molecular squence data
nucleotide sequences
Phylogenetics
Phylogeny
plant proteins
Plants
Plants - genetics
Polymerase chain reaction
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Summary:Several plants are known to have acquired a single mitochondrial gene by horizontal gene transfer (HGT), but whether these or any other plants have acquired many foreign genes is entirely unclear. To address this question, we focused on Amborella trichopoda, because it was already known to possess one horizontally acquired gene and because it was found in preliminary analyses to contain several more. We comprehensively sequenced the mitochondrial protein gene set of Amborella, sequenced a variable number of mitochondrial genes from 28 other diverse land plants, and conducted phylogenetic analyses of these sequences plus those already available, including the five sequenced mitochondrial genomes of angiosperms. Results indicate that Amborella has acquired one or more copies of 20 of its 31 known mitochondrial protein genes from other land plants, for a total of 26 foreign genes, whereas no evidence for HGT was found in the five sequenced genomes. Most of the Amborella transfers are from other angiosperms (especially eudicots), whereas others are from nonangiosperms, including six striking cases of transfer from (at least three different) moss donors. Most of the transferred genes are intact, consistent with functionality and/or recency of transfer. Amborella mtDNA has sustained proportionately more HGT than any other eukaryotic, or perhaps even prokaryotic, genome yet examined.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.0408336102