Relative rates of nucleotide substitution in the chloroplast genome

Coding sequences from maize, rice, tobacco, and liverwort chloroplasts are aligned and subjected to relative rate tests. Results of rate tests suggest that coding sequences from maize and rice are evolving with homogeneous rates of nucleotide substitution while coding sequences from the grass lineages (i.e., maize and rice) are evolving at a faster rate than coding sequences from the tobacco chloroplast. Rate tests also suggest that particular loci evolve at significantly faster rates in grass chloroplast genomes than the tobacco chloroplast genome. These loci encode proteins important to RNA polymerase, the H(+)-ATPase complex, and the ribosomal proteins. Much of the variation at these loci can be attributed to differences in nonsynonymous substitution rates. Taken together, these studies suggest that the chloroplast DNA molecular clock varies both between evolutionary lineages and between protein coding loci.