Involvement of 5′ flanking sequence for specifying RNA editing sites in plant mitochondria

Abstract

Unsuccessful insertion of foreign DNA into plant mitochondrial genomes has hindered scientific evaluation of cis-elements needed for RNA editing. Both a normal atp6 gene and a chimeric atp6 sequence are present in rice mitochondria. The chimeric atp6 contains one-half of the normal atp6 sequence in its 5′ portion and an unknown sequence in its downstream portion. The C-nucleotide at position 511, located just upstream of the unknown sequence recombined in the chimeric atp6 sequence, is edited, as are other possible editing sites upstream from position 511. We report here that the 5′ sequence adjacent to the editing site of atp6 contains cis-information required for RNA editing and that the 3′ sequence flanking the editing site provides little contribution to editing-site recognition.