RNA EDITING OF SORGHUM MITOCHONDRIAL ATP6 TRANSCRIPTS CHANGES 15 AMINO-ACIDS AND GENERATES A CARBOXY-TERMINUS IDENTICAL TO YEAST

Sequencing of sorghum mitochondrial atp6 cDNA clones revealed 19 C-to-U transcript editing events within a 756 bp-conserved core gene; three were silent and 16 resulted in 15 amino acid changes. Only one edit, which was silent, was found in the 381 bp amino-extension to the core gene. Eleven of the 15 changed amino acids were identical with or else represented conservative changes compared to yeast atp6. Editing of a CAA codon to TAA truncates the carboxy-terminus to a position identical to that of yeast. The frequency of editing at sites which change amino acids was very high in contrast to partial editing at silent, third base, sites.