Research
The Mower lab aims to address fundamental questions on the evolution of genome structure, function, and content in plants using a combination of experimental and computational approaches. We focus mainly on mitochondrial genomes because they are highly variable in their structure and content among different plants, while at the same time, they are small enough to allow complete sequencing from multiple species. These characteristics provide many opportunities for molecular evolutionary and comparative analysis on a genome-wide scale.
Current research focuses on four main areas:
1) the causes and consequences of extreme fluctuations in the rate of nucleotide substitution observed in several plant groups.
2) the role of parasitic plants in facilitating the horizontal transfer of genetic material between plants.
3) the distribution of introns across plants and the mechanisms of intron gain and loss.
4) the origin, evolution and computational prediction of RNA editing in plant organellar transcripts.
1) the causes and consequences of extreme fluctuations in the rate of nucleotide substitution observed in several plant groups.
2) the role of parasitic plants in facilitating the horizontal transfer of genetic material between plants.
3) the distribution of introns across plants and the mechanisms of intron gain and loss.
4) the origin, evolution and computational prediction of RNA editing in plant organellar transcripts.
