The tribe Hyoscyameae: somatic hybrids, phylogenetics, and horizontal gene transfer?

SANCHEZ PUERTA, MV

Seminario; Solanaceae Seminars Online; 2020

Plant mitochondrial genomes are remarkable for several reasons. A hallmark of angiosperm mitochondrial DNAs (mtDNAs) is the highly dynamic and recombinationally active nature of plant mtDNAs. This recombination activity facilitates the incorporation of foreign sequences in a process known as horizontal gene transfer (HGT). Somatic hybrids are a great system to study mtDNA recombination and the process of HGT given that mitochondria fuse during somatic hybrid production and their genomes to recombine. We chose Solanaceae as our experimental system because it is the premiere system for producing somatic hybrid plants that have been widely used in Solanaceae breeding programs. We chose Nicotiana tabacum and members of the tribe Hysocyameae for somatic hybrid production and serendipitously became interested on the systematics of the tribe. We will present our advances on mitochondrial genome recombination mechanisms, phylogenetic relationships within the tribe and a re-evaluation of HGT events affecting the mtDNA.