Increased mitochondrial activities in pigmented (melanized) fish cells and nucleotide sequence of mitochondrial large rRNA.

Using the subtracted probe approach, we had previously isolated eight cDNAs whose corresponding RNAs are more abundant in pigmented (melanized) than in closely related unpigmented goldfish cell lines. We report here that two of these are of mitochondrial origin, suggesting that pigmentation is accompanied by higher content (activity) of mitochondria. We also present the complete nucleotide sequence of the full length cDNA for the large mitochondrial rRNA, showing the presence of a polyA tail, two polyadenylation signals and a long open reading frame potentially encoding for a polypeptide of 166 amino acids and with no known protein homologue. It is however unknown whether such a polypeptide is actually produced.