Minicircle

Minicircle preparation from a parental plasmid. The parental plasmid contains two recombinase target sites (black half arrows). Recombination between these sites generates the desired minicircle (bottom right) together with the miniplasmid (bottom left). The hook on the red minicircle-insert stands for a scaffold-matrix attachment region ( S/MAR-Element), which allows for autonomous replication in the recipient cell.

Minicircles are small (~4kb) circular replicons. They occur naturally in some eukaryotic organelle genomes. In the mitochondria-derived kinetoplast of trypanosomes, minicircles encode guide RNAs for RNA editing.[1] In Amphidinium, the chloroplast genome is made of minicircles that encode chloroplast proteins.[2][3]

  1. ^ "Kinetoplastids and Their Networks of Interlocked DNA". Retrieved September 2, 2019.
  2. ^ Barbrook, Adrian C.; Voolstra, Christian R.; Howe, Christopher J. (2014). "The Chloroplast Genome of a Symbiodinium sp. Clade C3 Isolate". Protist. 165 (1): 1–13. doi:10.1016/j.protis.2013.09.006. hdl:10754/563301. PMID 24316380.
  3. ^ Dorrell, Richard G.; Nisbet, R. Ellen R.; Barbrook, Adrian C.; Rowden, Stephen J.L.; Howe, Christopher J. (2019). "Integrated Genomic and Transcriptomic Analysis of the Peridinin Dinoflagellate Amphidinium carterae Plastid". Protist. 170 (4): 358–373. doi:10.1016/j.protis.2019.06.001. PMID 31415953. S2CID 198240765.