Conserved sequence elements at putative processing sites in plant mitochondria

Abstract
Summary About 50 nucleotides are conserved in two distinct sequence elements at the 5′ termini of abundant short transcripts from plant mitochondrial genes with complex transcription patterns. These sequence motifs are found in both structural RNA and protein-coding precursor transcripts, for example, upstream of the mature 26S rRNA and the shortest transcript of the ATPase subunit 9 genes in different plant species. The high degree of sequence similaritiy in these plant mitochondrial loci suggests a common functional significance in 5′ processing site determination and selection.