Mitochondrial Gene Order Adjacent to the Control Region in Crocodile, Turtle, and Tuatara

✍ Scribed by Thomas W. Quinn; David P. Mindell

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 239 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1055-7903
• DOI: 10.1006/mpev.1996.0029

✦ Synopsis

We used the polymerase chain reaction and sequencstudies of vertebrate mtDNAs have shown that occaing of mitochondrial gene junctions adjacent to the 5′ sional changes in position of tRNA genes, as in Rana end of the control region (light strand orientation) and catesbeiana (Yoneyama, 1987), marsupials (Pa ¨a ¨bo et the 3′ end of ND6 to assess whether a representative al., 1991;Janke et al., 1994), and sea lamprey (Lee and crocodilian, turtle, or tuatara shares a unique mito-Kocher, 1995) do occur, and comparisons between Drochondrial gene order that is found in birds but not in sophila yakuba and mammalian mtDNA show that mammals or amphibians. Turtles and crocodiles have such translocations of tRNA genes are much more comthe same gene order as mammals, except that crocodile mon than are alterations in locations of protein-coding has a tRNA Phe gene inserted between tRNA Pro and the 5′ genes (Clary and Wolstenholme, 1985). Cantatore et al. end of the control region. Two different arrangements (1987) proposed that the secondary structure of tRNA were detected at the 5′ end of the control region in the genes may play a role in their increased mobility.

tuatara, one resembling the mammalian (but with

To date, the only known rearrangement among the tRNA Thr absent) and one resembling the avian gene or-protein-coding or ribosomal genes in tetrapod mtDNAs der. Our data are consistent with the hypothesis that has been found in birds, including chicken-like birds, some tuatara mtDNAs within a single individual have (Galliformes, Desjardins and Morais, 1990, 1991) and undergone a deletion that removed the genes coding waterfowl (Anseriformes, Desjardins et al., 1990; for cytochrome b and tRNA Pro as well as 87 bp of the Quinn and Wilson, 1993). In the avian arrangement control region.