ARCHAEAL RIBOSOMAL-RNA OPERONS, INTRON SPLICING AND HOMING ENDONUCLEASES, RNA-POLYMERASE OPERONS AND PHYLOGENY

Over the past decade our laboratory has had a strong interest in defin ing the phylogenetic status of the archaea. This has involved determin ing and analysing the sequences of operons of both rRNAs and RNA polym erases and it led to the discovery of the first archaeal rRNA intron. What follows is a description of some recent experiments and an apprai sal of the significance of the earlier work.