Sequence organization of the chloroplast ribosomal spacer ofSpinacia oleracea including the 3' end of the 16S rRNA and the 5' end of the 23S rRNA.

The 2201-bp spacer between the chloroplast ribosomal 16S and 23S genes ofSpinacia oleracea was sequenced. It contains the genes of the tRNA(Ile) (GAU) and tRNA(Ala) (UGC) which are both interrupted by introns of respectively 728 and 816 bp. These introns belong to the class II according to the classfication of Michel and Dujon [17]. Comparison of the rDNA spacer sequence of maize, tobacco and spinach indicates that no conserved polypeptide is encoded within the introns of the two tRNA genes and that the two main insertions/deletions between the three plants are located within two loops of the class II introns secondary structure, which is therefore conserved. Based on the sequence complementarity observed between the upstream and downstream parts, of the 16S and 23S rRNA genes, RNase III-like secondary structures involved in the processing of the rRNA precursor are proposed.