The mitochondrial genome of fertile maize (Zea maysL.) contains two copies of the gene encoding theα-subunit of the F1-ATPase

摘要

In contrast to the situation in animals and fungi theα-subunit of the mitochondrial F1-ATPase is encoded by two identical mitochondrial genes (ATPA) in male fertile maize (Zea maysL.). Cytoplasmic male sterile (T, C and S) maize mitochondrial genomes only contain a single copy of the gene. Sequence analysis reveals that the uninterrupted coding region of both copies of the gene is 1,524 by long and encodes a polypeptide of 508 amino acids with a molecular weight of 55,117. The predicted amino acid sequence shares over 60 homology with the nuclear encodedα-subunit from yeast and bovine ATPases and approx. 50 with the corresponding chloroplast and bacterial polypeptide