The discovery of interrupted genes and messenger RNA (mRNA) splicing 20 years ago was
greeted with amazement (Berget et al. 1977; Chow et al. 1977). Although introns needed to …

Homing endonucleases confer mobility to their host intervening sequence, either an intron
or intein, by catalyzing a highly specific double-strand break in a cognate allele lacking the …

Group I self-splicing introns catalyze their own excision from precursor RNAs by way of a two-
step transesterification reaction. The catalytic core of these ribozymes is formed by two …

The mitochondrion is arguably the most complex organelle in the budding yeast cell
cytoplasm. It is essential for viability as well as respiratory growth. Its innermost aqueous …

Group II introns are found in eubacteria and eubacterial-derived, organellar genomes. They
have ribozymic activities, by which they direct and catalyze the splicing of the exons flanking …

Recent studies on the genomes of protists, plants, fungi and animals confirm that the
increase in genome size and gene number in different eukaryotic lineages is paralleled by a …

The functional content of the mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) is highly diverse across
eukaryotes. Among land plants, our understanding of the variation in mitochondrial gene …

Although group I and group II introns were discovered more than 25 years ago, they are still
difficult to identify. Modeling their RNA structure also remains particularly challenging for …

Present in the genomes of bacteria and eukaryotic organelles, group II introns are an
ancient class of ribozymes and retroelements that are believed to have been the ancestors …

▪ Abstract Over the past several decades, our knowledge of the origin and evolution of
mitochondria has been greatly advanced by determination of complete mitochondrial …