Differences in editing at homologous sites in messenger RNAs from angiosperm mitochondria

Recent work has shown that amino acid sequence comparisons can be used to infer sites of C-to-U RNA editing in plant mitochondrial mRNAs (1). In order to test such predictions further and to search for conserved mRNA structural motifs that might provide insight into the mechanism of recognition of editing sites, the complete sequences of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit II (COXII) mRNAs of wheat, maize and pea were determined by reverse transcriptase sequencing. The results affirm the high reliability of editing predictions based on amino acid sequence alignments, and prompt us to make the further inference that COXI (cytochrome oxidase subunit I) mRNA is extensively edited in dicotyledonous plants but not in monocotyledons. In plant COXII mRNAs, additional non-predicted editing occurs such that the resulting derived amino acid sequences are more similar to those of non-plants than is indicated by the respective plant COXII DNA sequences. A number of homologous sites show differences in editing among species, and certain positions show partial editing within a species. Despite some deviation from expected nucleotide frequencies in the vicinity of editing sites, no extensive conserved primary or secondary structural motifs are apparent. The relevance of these data to the mechanism of RNA editing in plant mitochondria is discussed.