A novel reverse transcriptase activity associated with mitochondrial plasmids of Neurospora

Abstract

The Mauriceville and Varkud mitochondrial plasmids of Neurospora are closely related DNA elements whose nucleotide sequences and genetic organization suggest relationships to retrotransposons and mitochondrial introns. Both plasmids potentially encode a reverse transcriptase-like protein of 710 amino acids. We show that mitochondria from the Mauriceville and Varkud strains contain a reverse transcriptase activity highly specific for endogeneous plasmid RNA in RNP preparations. The reverse transcriptase synthesizes full-length minus-strand DNA beginning at the 3' end of the plasmid transcript, which has tRNA-like characteristics similar to the 3' ends of plant viral RNAs. Our results suggest that the plasmids use a novel mechanism of reverse transcription, which may have evolved to utilize tRNA-like structures at the 3' ends of self-replicating RNAs. This mechanism may be ancestral to the standard retroviral mechanism.