Novel protein genes in animal mtDNA: a new sex determination system in freshwater mussels (Bivalvia: Unionoida)?

ABSTRACT: Mitochondrial (mt) function depends critically on optimal interactions between components encoded by mt and nuclear DNAs. mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) inheritance (SMI) is thought to have evolved in animal species to maintain mito-nuclear complementarity by preventing the spread of selfish mt elements thus typically rendering mtDNA heteroplasmy evolutionarily ephemeral. Here, we show that mtDNA intraorganismal heteroplasmy can have deterministic underpinnings and persist for hundreds of millions of years. We demonstrate that the only exception to SMI in the animal kingdom, that is, the doubly uniparental mtDNA inheritance system in bivalves, with its three-way interactions among egg mt-, sperm mt- and nucleus-encoded gene products, is tightly associated with the maintenance of separate male a

SUBMITTER: Breton S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3107663 | biostudies-literature | 2011 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature