Assignment 1

Molecular systematic of plants

STF 3033
NAME:NURUL HUDA BINTI ALWAKIL
MATRIC NO: 22054
LECTURER : PN. JAMLIAH BT JAMEL

DEPARTMENT OF PLANT AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

FACULTY OF RESOURCE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA SARAWAK
 The first plant genome that had been distinguished was the chloroplast genome.
Dependently upon species, their size ranges are of 110,000 bp to 160,000 bp. Variation may
occur in size or structure within an individual. It is used in primarily for characterization as it
presence in small size and repeated number of elements. Moreover, it is widely distributed in
foliar tissue made it easy to isolate. Complete chloroplast genome sequences have been reported
for maize, rice, liverwort, Chlamydomonas, Euglena and several other interesting plant species.

The liverwort chloroplast genome contains 121,024 bp which contains two 10,058 bp
inverted repeats, separated by a small single copy region (19,813 bp) and a large single copy
region (81,095bp). It is reported of paternal plastid inheritance with few exceptions maternal and
most probably biparental inheritance can occur due to several outcrossing in angiosperm. The
chloroplast genome contains genes encoding the major ribosomal RNAs, and about half of the
required ribosomal proteins. All required tRNAs are encoded, and five are contained within the
inverted repeat. No major chloroplast function has been ascertained which can be fully
accomplished by proteins encoded solely by the chloroplast. All chloroplast functions require
imported proteins encoded by the nuclear genome.

Mitochondria are organelles that are generally used to generate power. Eventually, the
energy-rich molecules in the food we eat are burned in the mitochondria, providing the power to
drive other biochemical reactions and cellular processes. Mitochondria are unique organelles in
animal cells because they contain their own DNA. The human mitochondrial (mt) genome is a
small circular DNA molecule 16 568 bp in length containing 37 genes.

The cytoplasmic location of mtDNA and the high copy number contribute to certain
unique features of mitochondrial genetics. First, mtDNA is maternally inherited. Second,
mtDNA genes have a much higher mutation rate than nuclear DNA genes. Third, mitochondria
undergo replicative segregation at cell division. Fourth, many of the pathogenic mtDNA
mutations are heteroplasmic. For expression of a disease it is required that a certain threshold
level of mutant mtDNA should be exceeded. Fifth, somatic mtDNA mutations accumulate in
post-mitotic tissues with age, reducing the ATP generating capacity.
 Twenty-four of the genes specify RNA molecules involved in protein synthesis while the
remaining 13 encode proteins required for the biochemical reactions that make up respiration. A
number of rare diseases are caused by mutations in mitochondrial DNA, and the tissues primarily
affected are those that most rely on respiration such as brain and nervous system, muscles, and
the kidneys and liver. Mitochondrial diseases include Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy, in
which there is loss of vision often combined with cardiac arrhythmia, and Kearns-Sayre
syndrome, which involves paralysis of the eye muscles, dementia and seizures. They are
maternally inherited because of the absence of mitochondria in the sperm head that carries
paternal half of the nuclear genome.

Nuclear genome is the complete set of chromosomes found in each nucleus of a given
species which contains the entire genetic material. The nuclear genome is the largest in the plant
cell, both in terms of pictograms (mean weight of one nucleotide pair) of DNA and in number of
genes encoded (complexity). Eukaryotic nuclear genomes can be distinguished from organelle
and prokaryotic genomes by size and complexity. In higher plant genome, for example, contains
about 5 x 109 base pairs of DNA per haploid set of chromosomes. This is about 30,000 times as
much DNA as in a single chloroplast genome and some 10,000 times as much as in a moderately
sized plant mitochondrial genome. It is also thousands times more than that of bacterial DNA
present in Escherichia coli.

The typical plant genome would be about 3 metres long if the entire DNA were to be laid
out in a straight line. Chromosomes are composed of two types of large organic molecules
(macromolecules) called proteins and nucleic acids. Nucleic acids are of two types:
deoxyribonucleic acids (DNA) and ribonucleic acids (RNA). For many years scientists disputed
which of these three macromolecules (proteins, RNA and DNA) carries genetic information.
Number of experiments clearly established that genetic information resides in the nucleic
acids and not in the proteins. More specifically, these experiments showed that genetic
information resides in DNA. Nuclear DNA is packaged into chromosomes along with histones
and nonhistone proteins, all of which play important roles in gene expression.