Abstract
Sequences aligning partially with plant arginyl-tRNA synthetase but that showed unexpected mitochondrial characteristics, which do not occur in plants, have been detected in the plant transcriptome database. BLAST screening of this database with vertebrate nuclear-encoded mitochondrial arginyl-tRNA synthetase revealed a set of 23 sequences that on further analysis showed high similarity to fungal genomic DNA. A detailed knowledge of the gene organization of plant arginyl-tRNA synthetase and being aware of the mitochondrial origin of fungal cytoplasmic arginyl-tRNA synthetases have provided convincing evidence that the NCBI plant transcriptome (TSA) database is contaminated with data from fungal material.
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Online Resource 1. Listing of organisms from which the gene product corresponding to arginyl-tRNA synthetase was used for generating the consensus sequences given in Figure 1.
Online Resource 2. Gene organization of plant arginyl-tRNA synthetase.
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Igloi, G.L. Evidence for fungal sequence contamination in plant transcriptome databases. Plant Syst Evol 305, 563–568 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-019-01586-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-019-01586-2