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Updated: Jul 30, 2026

Preparation of the Mgm101 Recombination Protein by MBP-based Tagging Strategy
Published on: June 25, 2013
Recombinant mitochondrial DNA molecules suggest a template switching ability for group-II-intron reverse
C H Sellem1, O Begel, A Sainsard-Chanet
1Centre de Génétique Moléculaire, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Gif sur Yvette, France. Sellem@cgm.cnrs-gif.fr
Abstract:
Degenerative processes in the filamentous fungus Podospora anserina are strongly correlated with the instability of the mitochondrial genome. Among the sources of instability is the mobile group-II intron COX1-i1, also called intron alpha, which encodes a protein with a reverse transcriptase activity. In this paper we characterize, through PCR experiments, mitochondrial recombinant DNA molecules joining the 5' end of intron alpha to the 3' end of tRNA sequences including the CCA motif. The structure of these junctions led us to propose that they were most probably initiated by a RNA template switching of the reverse transcriptase encoded in COX1-i1. This activity might be involved in a number of mitochondrial rearrangements occurring in degenerative syndromes and in some long-lived mutants.
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