Horizontal Transfer of Entire Genomes via Mitochondrial Fusion in the Angiosperm <i>Amborella</i>

<jats:title>Shaping Plant Evolution</jats:title> <jats:p> <jats:italic>Amborella trichopoda</jats:italic> is understood to be the most basal extant flowering plant and its genome is anticipated to provide insights into the evolution of plant life on Earth (see the Perspective by <jats:bold> <jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="doi" issue="6165" page="1456" related-article-type="in-this-issue" vol="342" xlink:href="10.1126/science.1248709">Adams</jats:related-article> </jats:bold> ). To validate and assemble the sequence, <jats:bold> Chamala <jats:italic>et al.</jats:italic> </jats:bold> (p. <jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="doi" issue="6165" page="1516" related-article-type="in-this-issue" vol="342" xlink:href="10.1126/science.1241130">1516</jats:related-article> ) combined fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH), genomic mapping, and next-generation sequencing. The <jats:bold>Amborella Genome Project</jats:bold> (p. <jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="doi" related-article-type="in-this-issue" xlink:href="10.1126/science.1241089">10.1126/science.1241089</jats:related-article> ) was able to infer that a whole-genome duplication event preceded the evolution of this ancestral angiosperm, and <jats:bold> Rice <jats:italic>et al.</jats:italic> </jats:bold> (p. <jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="doi" issue="6165" page="1468" related-article-type="in-this-issue" vol="342" xlink:href="10.1126/science.1246275">1468</jats:related-article> ) found that numerous genes in the mitochondrion were acquired by horizontal gene transfer from other plants, including almost four entire mitochondrial genomes from mosses and algae. </jats:p>