Abstract
The mitochondrial genome of fission yeast is remarkable because of its small size of only 19.43 kbp in strain 50 of the Leupold collection (Fig.1). Nevertheless, this genome contains two group I introns and one group II intron (Paschke et al. 1993). The construction of an intronless mitochondrial genome (Schäfer et al. 1991) yielded a small genome of only 14.62 kbp. The construction of strains with mitochondrial genomes harboring just one intron provides the opportunity to study the transmission of this special intron using the intronless mitochondrial genome as recipient. The two introns in the gene encoding the largest subunit of cytochrome c oxidase (coxl) belong to group I, the intron in the gene for apocyto-chrome b is a group II intron. In this contribution we shall briefly summarize the characteristics of these introns, focusing mainly on their mobility. We further report on a first attempt to characterize an intron-encoded endonuclease. Finally, we discuss the possibility of horizontal transfer of a group I intron between microorganisms and from the mitochondria to the nucleus.
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© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Schäfer, B., Wolf, K. (1997). The Mobile Introns in Fission Yeast Mitochondria: A Short Review and New Data. In: Schenk, H.E.A., Herrmann, R.G., Jeon, K.W., Müller, N.E., Schwemmler, W. (eds) Eukaryotism and Symbiosis. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60885-8_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60885-8_10
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