Skip to main content
  • Research news
  • Published:

Mitochondrial inheritance

In the September 6 Nature, Berlin and Ellegren from Uppsala University, Sweden, examine the controversial clonal inheritance theory for vertebrate mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) by following co-inheritance of a female-specific nuclear DNA marker (Nature 2001, 413:37-38). They examined the avian W chromosome, most of which is non-recombining and therefore clonally transmitted by females. A polymorphic (CA)n repeat, NVHfp49, on the W chromosome of 53 female peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus) and 1,625 bp of mtDNA sequence were followed. The patterns of divergence of mtDNA and W-chromosome sequences were completely concordant. These data support the hypothesis of clonal inheritance of mtDNA from mothers to daughters without recombination.

References

  1. Nature, [http://www.nature.com]

  2. Uppsala University, [http://www.uu.se]

  3. Linkage disequilibrium and recombination in hominid mitochondrial DNA

  4. Evolution of the avian sex chromosomes and their role in sex determination.

Download references

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Weitzman, J.B. Mitochondrial inheritance. Genome Biol 2, spotlight-20010906-01 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1186/gb-spotlight-20010906-01

Download citation

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/gb-spotlight-20010906-01

Keywords