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Evolutionary genetics

Clonal inheritance of avian mitochondrial DNA

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Abstract

We have taken a new approach to test the commonly accepted, but recently questioned, principle1,2 of clonal inheritance of vertebrate mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) by relating its inheritance to a female-specific marker of nuclear DNA. Whereas this is impossible in organisms with male heterogamy (such as mammals), we show here that genealogies of mtDNA and the female-specific W chromosome of a bird species are completely concordant. Our results indicate that inheritance of mtDNA is free of detectable recombination effects over an evolutionary timescale.

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Figure 1: Relationship between mitochondrial (mt) DNA and W-chromosome lineages.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Evolutionary Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18D, Uppsala, SE-752 36, Sweden

    Sofia Berlin & Hans Ellegren

Authors
  1. Sofia Berlin
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  2. Hans Ellegren
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Correspondence to Hans Ellegren.

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brief communications is intended to provide a forum for both brief, topical reports of general scientific interest and technical discussion of recently published material of particular interest to non-specialist readers. Priority will be given to contributions that have fewer than 500 words, 10 references and only one figure. Detailed guidelines are available on Nature's website (http://www.nature.com) or on request from nature@nature.com

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Berlin, S., Ellegren, H. Clonal inheritance of avian mitochondrial DNA. Nature 413, 37–38 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35092623

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