Group II Introns of Mitochondria and Nuclear Encoded Maturases Proteins

Abstract

The removal of group II introns from plant mtDNA is essential for normal function of mitochondria, thus respiratory functions. Intron encoded maturases are proteins which facilitate self splicing of group II introns in bacteria and organellar genomes of several lower eukaryotes. It was recently found that the nuclear genomes of higher plants bear four genes (nMat 1-4), which are closely related to maturases and contain N-terminal mitochondrial localization signals. The roles of three of these paralogs in Arabidopsis, nMAT1 and nMAT2, nMAT4 in the splicing of mitochondrial introns have been established. In this review, background information on maturases with recent discoveries has been presented.