Fig. 1.—

Integration of mitochondrial gene sequences through a cDNA intermediate. The central panel shows a gene with four introns and eight edited sites. Following splicing and RNA editing, the mRNA sequence is reverse transcribed and through homologous recombination it replaces the original gene completely. Variation A shows how partial recombination replaces only part of the original sequence. Variation B shows how partial RNA editing and incomplete splicing followed by retrotranscription and homologous recombination may produce a gene where some edited sites and introns remain. The figure is modified from Henze and Martin (2001).