Chloroplast C-to-U RNA editing in vascular plants is adaptive due to its restorative effect: testing the restorative hypothesis

C-to-U RNA editing in vascular plants. (A) C-to-U RNA editing. (B) C-to-U editing could lead to nonsynonymous or synonymous mutations. (C) The phylogeny and C-to-U RNA editing landscape of 21 vascular plants. Eleven angiosperms, four gymnosperms, and six ferns were collected from a previous study. The numbers of editing sites, distribution of editing levels, and cumulative editing levels are shown next to each species. Nonsynonymous sites and synonymous sites are displayed separately, and their editing levels are compared to each other by Wilcoxon rank sum tests. (*) P < 0.05; (**) P < 0.01; (***) P < 0.001.