Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Systematics and Evolution
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1550467

The organelle genomes of the endangered seagrass Zostera caespitosa reveal sequence divergences, massive gene transfer, and uncommon RNA editing types

Provisionally accepted
Yushun Yong Yushun Yong 1*Yulian Wang Yulian Wang 2*Dawei Wang Dawei Wang 2*Xingfang Yuan Xingfang Yuan 2*Quansheng Zhang Quansheng Zhang 1*
  • 1 Ocean School, Yantai University, Yantai 264005, China
  • 2 No. 6 Geological Team of Shandong Provincial Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, Weihai, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Zostera caespitosa, a rare submerged angiosperm, is considered endemic to the northwestern Pacific. This study assembled and compared the mitochondrial (mt) and chloroplast (cp) genomes of Z. caespitosa to understand the organelle evolutionary patterns. The cp genome (143,972 bp) was the second smallest within the seagrasses, whereas the mt genomes (192,246 bp) of Z. caespitosa and other seagrasses were smaller compared to those of other monocotyledons. The protein-coding genes (PCGs) in the organelle genome exhibit a strong A/U bias at codon endings, a selection-driven codon bias. The rates of non-synonymous (Ka) and synonymous (Ks) substitutions in the mt genes of Zostera were two times higher than those in the cp genes. Additionally, 50 mitochondrial plastid DNA (MTPT) segments, totaling 44,662 bp, were identified, constituting 23.23% of the mt genome, which is significantly higher than those in most land plants. Phylogenetic analysis of 13 seagrass core cp-PCGs supported previous studies showing two genera in family Zosteraceae: Phyllospadix, Zostera, the latter comprising Zostera and Zosterella as subgenera. RNA editing was remarkably abundant in the 167 mt-PCGs and 172 in cp-PCGs, particularly in the cp genome. There are 11

    Keywords: Zostera caespitosa, mitochondrial genomes, Chloroplast genomes, sequence evolution, gene transfer, RNA Editing

    Received: 23 Dec 2024; Accepted: 20 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Yong, Wang, Wang, Yuan and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Yushun Yong, Ocean School, Yantai University, Yantai 264005, China
    Yulian Wang, No. 6 Geological Team of Shandong Provincial Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, Weihai, China
    Dawei Wang, No. 6 Geological Team of Shandong Provincial Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, Weihai, China
    Xingfang Yuan, No. 6 Geological Team of Shandong Provincial Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, Weihai, China
    Quansheng Zhang, Ocean School, Yantai University, Yantai 264005, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.