Abstract
RNA editing in plant mitochondria alters several hundred C nucleotides to U residues in coding regions of mRNAs. To analyze the biochemical and the specificity parameters of RNA editing in plant mitochondria we have developed a novel in vitro system. The high sensitivity of the mismatch-specific endonuclease thymine glycosylase is employed to allow quantitative evaluation of the in vitro RNA editing products. A pea mitochondrial lysate correctly edits a specific site in the cognate atp9 template. In this contribution we will present the latest results on the biochemical parameters of in vitro RNA editing and of the investigation of the cis-requirements defining an editing site.
