Abstract
The translation process within photosynthetic organelles of higher plants and algae is mediated by ribosomes of the 70S type first described by Lyttelton (1960), which are different from the cytoplasmic 80S and the mitochondrial 75S ribosomes. In view of the key function of 70S ribosomes for the expression of plastome encoded genes and because of the phylogenetic relevance of ribosomal RNA structures and their genes, structural and functional analysis of chloroplast rRNA genes from various species of higher plants and algae have been carried out in several laboratories since the beginning of plant molecular biology at the end of the seventies (for reviews see Palmer, 1985; Gruissem, 1989; Sugiura, 1989; Steinmetz and Weil, 1989; Delp and Kössel, 1991). In this article a survey is given first of the major characteristics of chloroplast operon structures and their constituents and second of our present knowledge of various steps of rRNA operon expression.
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© 1991 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Kössel, H. (1991). Structure and Expression of rRNA Genes. In: Mache, R., Stutz, E., Subramanian, A.R. (eds) The Translational Apparatus of Photosynthetic Organelles. NATO ASI Series, vol 55. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-75145-5_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-75145-5_1
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