The locatization of mitochondrial sequences to chromosomal DNA in orthopterans.

There is growing evidence that the integration of mitochondrial DNA sequences into nuclear and chloroplast genomes of higher organisms may be widespread rather than exceptional. We report the localization of 18S–25S rDNA and mitochondrial DNA sequences to meiotic chromosomes of several orthopteran species using in situ hybridisation. The cytochrome oxidase I (COI) sequence localizes to the centromeric and two telomeric regions of the eight bivalents of Chorthippus parallelus, the telomeric regions in Schistocerca gregaria and is present throughout the genome of Italopodisma sp. (Orthoptera: Acrididae). The control region of the mitochondrion and COI localize to similar chromosomal regions in S. gregaria. These data explain sequencing data that are inconsistent with the COI sequence being solely mitochondrial. The different nuclear locations of mtDNA in the different genera studied suggest that grasshopper mtDNA-like sequences have been inserted into the nuclear genome more than once in Acridid history, and there may have been different mechanisms involved when these events occurred in each of these species

Structural and electronic changes in graphite fluorides as a function of fluorination rate: An XRS, PDF and DFT study

International audienceIn the present paper, graphite fluoride compounds CxF with various degrees of fluorination (x = 4, 2 and 1), i.e., with different C-F bonding characteristics, were systematically investigated using X-ray Raman Spectroscopy (XRS) and X-ray and neutron diffraction by means of Pair Distribution Function (PDF) analysis. For both techniques, ab-initio calculations allow the experimental results and structural/bonding assignments to be explained and/or confirmed. Presented here for the three stoichiometries are results for the carbon and fluorine first-neighbour distances, the evolution of the electronic band structure due to the change of the carbon hybridization upon fluorination, and also the nature of the final states for 1s core-electron excitations. Since fluorination is limited by the diffusion of fluorine in the carbon lattice, the process is less effective in the bulk, where a graphitic core remains. The cross-checked XRS, PDF data and Density Functional Theory (DFT) simulations appear also to be a powerful method to highlight the presence of a residual graphitic core, even at the highest fluorine content, in such semi-disordered and structurally complex compounds