PPR

Dahan J & Mireau H 2013 The Rf and Rf-like PPR in higher plants, a fast-evolving subclass of PPR genes. RNA Biol 10:1469-1476.

• PPR binding could induce local RNA structure reorganization to make otherwise hidden binding sites more accessible to other proteins or complexes

• compared with the large size of the PPR family in terrestrial plants,^18,51 they constitute a relatively small subgroup of genes, ranging from five predicted RFL genes in Zea mays to 33 in Arabidopsis lyrata

• in Arabidopsis thaliana, most RFL genes are mainly clustered in two regions of chromosome 1
• the physical clustering of highly homologous RFL genes is indicative of extensive and ongoing local duplication of genes belonging to this subfamily
• this contrasts with the rest of the PPR family, which likely expanded mostly through retrotransposition

• the expansion of the RFL family in autogamous species such as Arabidopsis thaliana is surprising and suggests that it is not necessarily associated to the suppression of CMS