The past decade has witnessed an explosion of our knowledge on the
structure, coding capacity and evolution of the genomes of the two
DNA-containing cell organelles in plants: chloroplasts (plastids) and
mitochondria. Comparative genomics analyses have provided new insights
into the origin of organelles by endosymbioses and uncovered an enormous
evolutionary dynamics of organellar genomes. In addition, they have
greatly helped to clarify phylogenetic relationships, especially in
algae and early land plants with limited morphological and anatomical
diversity. This book, written by leading experts, summarizes our current
knowledge about plastid and mitochondrial genomes in all major groups of
algae and land plants. It also includes chapters on endosymbioses,
plastid and mitochondrial mutants, gene expression profiling and methods
for organelle transformation. The book is designed for students and
researchers in plant molecular biology, taxonomy, biotechnology and
evolutionary biology.