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1. Ultraviolet irradiation alters the density of inner mitochondrial membrane and proportion of inter-mitochondrial junctions in copepod myocytes

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mito.2020.11.001  

   Heine, Kyle B. ; Justyn, Nicholas M. ; Hill, Geoffrey E. ; Hood, Wendy R. ( January 2021 , Mitochondrion)

   null (Ed.)
2. TDP-43 interacts with mitochondrial proteins critical for mitophagy and mitochondrial dynamics

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2018.04.053  

   Davis, Stephani A. ; Itaman, Sheed ; Khalid-Janney, Christopher M. ; Sherard, Justin A. ; Dowell, James A. ; Cairns, Nigel J. ; Gitcho, Michael A. ( June 2018 , Neuroscience Letters)
3. Phosphorylation of mitochondrial transcription factor B2 controls mitochondrial DNA binding and transcription

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbrc.2020.05.141  

   Bostwick, Alicia M. ; Moya, Gonzalo E. ; Senti, Mackenna L. ; Basu, Urmimala ; Shen, Jiayu ; Patel, Smita S. ; Dittenhafer-Reed, Kristin E. ( July 2020 , Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications)
4. Mitochondrial mRNA Processing in the Chlorophyte Alga Pediastrum duplex and Streptophyte Alga Chara vulgaris Reveals an Evolutionary Branch in Mitochondrial mRNA Processing

   https://doi.org/10.3390/plants10030576  

   Proulex, Grayson C. ; Meade, Marcus J. ; Manoylov, Kalina M. ; Cahoon, A. Bruce ( March 2021 , Plants)

   null (Ed.)

   Mitochondria carry the remnant of an ancestral bacterial chromosome and express those genes with a system separate and distinct from the nucleus. Mitochondrial genes are transcribed as poly-cistronic primary transcripts which are post-transcriptionally processed to create individual translationally competent mRNAs. Algae post-transcriptional processing has only been explored in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (Class: Chlorophyceae) and the mature mRNAs are different than higher plants, having no 5′ UnTranslated Regions (UTRs), much shorter and more variable 3′ UTRs and polycytidylated mature mRNAs. In this study, we analyzed transcript termini using circular RT-PCR and PacBio Iso-Seq to survey the 3′ and 5′ UTRs and termini for two green algae, Pediastrum duplex (Class: Chlorophyceae) and Chara vulgaris (Class: Charophyceae). This enabled the comparison of processing in the chlorophyte and charophyte clades of green algae to determine if the differences in mitochondrial mRNA processing pre-date the invasion of land by embryophytes. We report that the 5′ mRNA termini and non-template 3′ termini additions in P. duplex resemble those of C. reinhardtii, suggesting a conservation of mRNA processing among the chlorophyceae. We also report that C. vulgaris mRNA UTRs are much longer than chlorophytic examples, lack polycytidylation, and are polyadenylated similar to embryophytes. This demonstrates that some mitochondrial mRNA processing events diverged with the split between chlorophytic and streptophytic algae. 

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5. Rapid Shifts in Mitochondrial tRNA Import in a Plant Lineage with Extensive Mitochondrial tRNA Gene Loss

   https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msab255  

   Warren, Jessica M ; Salinas-Giegé, Thalia ; Triant, Deborah A ; Taylor, Douglas R ; Drouard, Laurence ; Sloan, Daniel B ( August 2021 , Molecular Biology and Evolution)

   Purugganan, Michael (Ed.)

   Abstract In most eukaryotes, transfer RNAs (tRNAs) are one of the very few classes of genes remaining in the mitochondrial genome, but some mitochondria have lost these vestiges of their prokaryotic ancestry. Sequencing of mitogenomes from the flowering plant genus Silene previously revealed a large range in tRNA gene content, suggesting rapid and ongoing gene loss/replacement. Here, we use this system to test longstanding hypotheses about how mitochondrial tRNA genes are replaced by importing nuclear-encoded tRNAs. We traced the evolutionary history of these gene loss events by sequencing mitochondrial genomes from key outgroups (Agrostemma githago and Silene [=Lychnis] chalcedonica). We then performed the first global sequencing of purified plant mitochondrial tRNA populations to characterize the expression of mitochondrial-encoded tRNAs and the identity of imported nuclear-encoded tRNAs. We also confirmed the utility of high-throughput sequencing methods for the detection of tRNA import by sequencing mitochondrial tRNA populations in a species (Solanum tuberosum) with known tRNA trafficking patterns. Mitochondrial tRNA sequencing in Silene revealed substantial shifts in the abundance of some nuclear-encoded tRNAs in conjunction with their recent history of mt-tRNA gene loss and surprising cases where tRNAs with anticodons still encoded in the mitochondrial genome also appeared to be imported. These data suggest that nuclear-encoded counterparts are likely replacing mitochondrial tRNAs even in systems with recent mitochondrial tRNA gene loss, and the redundant import of a nuclear-encoded tRNA may provide a mechanism for functional replacement between translation systems separated by billions of years of evolutionary divergence. 

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