Article: Extensive variation in synonymous substitution rates in mitochondrial genes of seed plants.(Research article)(Report)

Authors: Jeffrey P Mower [1,3]; Pascal Touzet [2]; Julie S Gummow [1]; Lynda F Delph [1]; Jeffrey D Palmer (corresponding author) [1]

Background

A synonymous site substitution is defined as a change in a protein-coding gene that does not alter the amino acid sequence encoded by the gene. Thus, synonymous substitutions are often assumed to be free of selection at the protein level, and the rates at which they accumulate are widely used as an approximation of the neutral mutation rate. The first study on rates of synonymous substitutions in flowering plants found that mitochondrial genes evolve a few times more slowly than chloroplast genes, about ten ...

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