TRANSFER OF ORGANELLE GENES TO THE NUCLEUS

细胞器基因和基因组的研究对我们理解- 真核细胞和分子生物学。 正常运作 所有真核细胞中的细胞器都需要精确的协作 细胞核和细胞器遗传系统之间的联系 网站的缺陷 功能对人类健康有直接影响，这一点从以下几点可以看出： 最近关于遗传性疾病的大量报道。 这一建议解决了遗传共同进化中的基本问题- 真核细胞的离子：细胞器基因如何发挥功能 转移到细胞核中，这些基因的结果是什么？ 搬迁 首先，我们将探讨几个最近的基因转移案例， 1）深入了解功能激活的时间和过程 细胞核内转移的细胞器基因; 2）检查 RNA中间体和逆转录在物理中的流行 细胞区室之间的序列迁移行为;和3）测试 剪接体依赖核前mRNA内含子进化假说 来自自我剪接的第二组内含子 第二种是更古老的叶绿体基因向细胞核的转移 tufA将被检查以检验与基因功能相关的两个假设： 1)这种基因转移使得绿色的鞘毛纲 跨室基因扩增的新情况， 基因拷贝之间的功能差异，2）这同一个 转移，在陆地植物拟南芥中，导致了几乎相反的结果。 (and也是新的）情况，即一个核基因提供两个 叶绿体和叶绿体含有相同的蛋白质。 最后，我们将继续研究，利用各种分子 进化的方法，急剧加速的分子进化 叶绿体编码的RNA聚合酶。

The study of organelle genes and genomes is essential to our understand- ing of eukaryotic cellular and molecular biology. The proper functioning of organelles in all eukaryotic cells involves a precise cooperation between nuclear and organelle genetic systems. Defects in this functioning have direct consequences for human health, as is evident from the recent explosion of reports on mitochondrially-inherited diseases. This proposal addresses the fundamental problem in the genetic coevolut- ion of the eukaryotic cell: How are organellar genes functionally transferred to the nucleus and what are the consequences of these genetic relocations? First, several cases of recent gene transfer will be explored in order to 1) gain insights into the timing and process of functional activation of a transferred organellar gene within the nucleus; 2) examine the prevalence of RNA intermediates and reverse transcription in the physical act of sequence migration between cellular compartments; and 3) test the hypothesis that spliceosomal-dependent nuclear pre-MRNA introns evolved from self-splicing group II introns. Second, a more ancient transfer to the nucleus, of the chloroplast gene tufA, will be examined to test two hypotheses relating to gene function: 1) that this gene transfer allowed, in the green alga Coleochaete, a novel situation of cross-compartmental gene amplification, with functional divergence among the gene copies, and 2) that this same transfer, in the land plant Arabidopsis, resulted in the nearly opposite (and also novel) situation, whereby one nuclear gene supplies both the chloroplast and mitochondrion with the same protein. Finally, we will continue to study, using a variety of molecular evolutionary approaches, the dramatically accelerated molecular evolution of the chloroplast-encoded RNA polymerase in geranium.