Significant differences between the chloroplast genomes of two Acetabularia mediterranea strains

Summary The chloroplast DNAs of Acetabularia mediterranea strains 5 and 17 differ significantly in their restriction patterns. Southern blotting analysis using gene probes derived from the coding regions of spinach genes showed that psbB and petB each map to unique restriction fragments which are shared in strains 5 and 17. On the other hand psaA, psbA and rbcL map to different restriction fragments in strains 5 and 17 probably as a result of restriction fragment length polymorphism. In addition to restriction fragment polymorphism there is evidence for much larger differences in the organization of the plastome. The most striking difference is the absence in strain 5 of a 10 kb repeated sequence which has previously been demonstrated in strain 17. However, both strains apparently share at least 8 kb of the 10 kb repeated sequence. Restriction analysis of independent clones of the 10 kb sequence revealed a family of non-identical repeats.This paper is dedicated to the memory of Prof. H.G. Schweiger, Director of the Max-Planck-Institut fur Zellbiologie, who died in November 1986Deceased