Research Interests
Research in my lab uses a variety of experimental and computational
approaches to address fundamental questions on the origin and
evolution of genome complexity in plants. Current research focuses
on the evolutionary fate of duplicated genes after a whole genome
duplication event, on the causes and consequences of extreme
fluctuations in the rate of nucleotide substitution, on the role of
parasitism in cases of horizontal gene transfer between plants, and
on the origin, evolution and computational prediction of RNA editing
in plant organellar transcripts.
Recent Papers
Mower JP. Modeling sites of RNA editing as a fifth nucleotide state
reveals progressive loss of edited sites from angiosperm
mitochondria. Mol Biol Evol 2008, 25:52-61.
Sanchez-Puerta MV, Cho Y, Mower JP, Alverson AJ, Palmer JD. Frequent,
phylogenetically local horizontal transfer of the cox1 group I intron
in flowering plant mitochondria. Mol Biol Evol 2008, 25:1762-1777.
Mower JP, Touzet P, Gummow JS, Delph LS, Palmer JD. Extensive
variation in synonymous substitution rates in mitochondrial genes of
seed plants. BMC Evol Biol 2007, 7:135.
Chumley TW, Palmer JD, Mower JP, Fourcade HM, Calie PJ, Boore JL,
Jansen RK. The complete chloroplast genome sequence of Pelargonium x
hortorum: Organization and evolution of the largest and most highly
rearranged chloroplast genome of land plants. Mol Biol Evol 2006,
23:2175-2190.
Mower JP, Palmer JD. Patterns of partial RNA editing in mitochondrial
genes of Beta vulgaris. Mol Genet Genomics 2006, 276:285-293.
Mower JP. PREP-Mt: predictive RNA editor for plant mitochondrial
genes. BMC Bioinformatics 2005, 6:96.
Parkinson CL, Mower JP, Qiu YL, Shirk AJ, Song K, Young ND,
dePamphilis CW, Palmer JD. Multiple major increases and decreases in
mitochondrial substitution rates in the plant family Geraniaceae. BMC
Evol Biol 2005, 5:73.
Cho Y, Mower JP, Qiu YL, Palmer JD. Mitochondrial substitution rates
are extraordinarily elevated in a genus of flowering plants. Proc
Natl Acad Sci USA 2004, 101:17741-17746.
Mower JP, Stefanovic S, Young GJ, Palmer JD. Gene transfer from
parasitic to host plants. Nature 2004, 432:165-166.
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