Structure of nuclear-localized cox3 genes in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and in its colorless close relative Polytomella sp.

Abstract.

Several chlorophyte algae do not have the cox3 gene, encoding subunit III of cytochrome c oxidase, in their mitochondrial genomes. The cox3 gene is nuclear-encoded in the photosynthetic alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and in the colorless alga Polytomella sp. In this work, the genomic sequences of the cox3 genes of these two closely related algae are reported. The cox3 genes of both C. reinhardtii and Polytomella sp. contain four introns in the region encoding the putative mitochondrial-targeting sequences. These four introns show low sequence identities, but their locations are conserved between these species. The cox3 gene of C. reinhardtii has five additional introns in the region encoding the mature subunit III of cytochrome c oxidase. Sequence analysis of intron 6 of the cox3 gene of C. reinhardtii revealed similarity with two sequence elements present in introns of several other nuclear genes from this green alga. In the majority of the genes, these conserved sequences are located either near the 3′ end or near the 5′ end of the introns. Based on these data, we propose that the colorless genus Polytomella separated from C. reinhardtii after the cox3 gene was transferred to the nucleus. The data also support the evolutionary hypothesis of a recent acquisition of introns in C. reinhardtii.