Poster abstracts

Poster number 66 submitted by Wei Zhang

Gene Prediction in Physarum and Didymium Mitochondria by Comparative Approach for RNA Editing

Wei Zhang (Biophysics program, The Ohio State University), Ralf Bundschuh (Department of Physics and Biophysics program, The Ohio State University)

Abstract:
Mitochondrial gene identification in Physarum polycephalum and Didymium iridis is a complex process because of frequent RNA editing in which nucleotides are inserted, deleted or substituted during DNA transcription so that DNA and mRNA sequences for the same gene are different. Comparison of two genomes has proved to be a powerful approach to solve this. Alignment results by NCBI bl2seq software, based on complete Physarum and partial Didymium mitochondrial sequences, show 42 conserved regions. 13 of such regions match 2 known rRNAs in Physarum, indicating 2 rRNAs in Didymium. 14 match 11 known protein coding genes in Physarum, indicating 8 unknown genes and confirming 3 known ones in Didymium. 11 indicate other 10 protein coding genes in both organisms and are also in accordance with the results previously predicted by our existing program PIE that only works on Physarum. 3 are newly found and their details are unknown so far. The remaining 1 is believed to be tRNA because it is short and close to rRNAs. With the remaining part of Didymium genome to have been sequenced, this work will help identify more unknown genes and discover the editing mechanisms in both organisms.

Keywords: comparative approach, editing mechanism