| Literature DB >> 11544517 |
Abstract
We have taken a new approach to test the commonly accepted, but recently questioned, principle 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.Mesh:
Substances:
Year: 2001 PMID: 11544517 DOI: 10.1038/35092623
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Nature ISSN: 0028-0836 Impact factor: 49.962