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Nucleotide sequence of the maize chloroplast rpo B/C1/C2 operon: Comparison between the derived protein primary structures from various organisms with respect to functional domains

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Summary

The genes (rpo B/C1/C2) coding for the β, β′, β″ subnits of maize (Zea mays) chloroplast RNA polymerase have been located on the plastome and their nucleotide sequences established. The operon is part of a large inversion with respect to the tobacco and spinach chloroplast genomes and is flanked by the genes trnC and rps2. Notable features of the nucleotide sequence are the loss of an intron in rpoC1, and an insertion of approximately 450 by in rpOC2 compared to the dicotyledons tobacco, spinach and liver-wort. The derived amino acid sequence of this additional monocotyledon specific sequence is characterized by acidic heptameric repeat units containing stretches of glutamic acid, tyrosines and leucines with regular spacing. Other structural motifs, such as a nucleotide binding domain in the β subunit and a zinc finger in the β′ subunit, are compared at the amino acid level throughout the RNA polymerase subunits with the enzymes from other organisms in order to identify functionally important conserved regions.

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Author notes

  1. Andreas Meinke

    Present address: Department of Microbiology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

  2. István Döry

    Present address: Agricultural Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 19, H-2462, Martonvásár, Hungary

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Biologic III der Universität Freiburg, Schänzlestrasse 1, D-7800, Freiburg, Germany

    Gabor L. Igloi, Andreas Meinke, István Döry & Hans Kössel

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  1. Gabor L. Igloi
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  2. Andreas Meinke
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  3. István Döry
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  4. Hans Kössel
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Additional information

Communicated by R. Hagemann

The sequence data presented in this paper will appear in the EMBL/Gen Bank/DDBJ Nucleotide Databases under the accession number X17318

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Igloi, G.L., Meinke, A., Döry, I. et al. Nucleotide sequence of the maize chloroplast rpo B/C1/C2 operon: Comparison between the derived protein primary structures from various organisms with respect to functional domains. Mol Gen Genet 221, 379–394 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00259403

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00259403

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