Genetic aspects of mitochondrial genome evolution

Abstract

Many years of extensive studies of metazoan mitochondrial genomes have es- nuclear mitochondrial-like sequences (NUMTS) is another aspect of this review.

Scrambled and not-so-tiny genomes of fungal endosymbionts

“…It seemed that once a stable obligate symbiosis is developed, the endosymbiont genomes would undergo extreme levels of reduction and become highly static. These observations parallel those found in animal mitochondria (5) and angiosperm chloroplasts (6), which begs the question of how universal these evolutionary trends are among heritable endosymbionts. In PNAS two companion articles (7,8) provide a first glimpse of the endosymbiont genomes from a group of ancient and diverse fungi.…”

Complete mitochondrial genome of white-throated rock-thrush Monticola cinclorhynchus gularis (Passeriformes: muscicapidae)

“…Most of the mitochondrial genes are encoded on heavy strand (H-strand) while ND6 and eight tRNA genes are encoded on light strand (L-strand). All tRNAs possess the classic clover leaf secondary structure except for tRNA Ser (AGN) and tRNA Cys (CUN) , which lack the 'DHU' stem, only forming a simple loop, as observed in other bird mitogenomes (Bernt et al 2012). The non-coding regions contain a 1222 bp long control region (D-loop), which is located between tRNA Glu and tRNA Phe , and a few intergenic spacers.…”

The mitochondrial genome of the Mediterranean flour moth, Ephestia kuehniella (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), and identification of invading mitochondrial sequences (numts) in the W chromosome

“…They are usually circular, non-recombining, present in multiple copies, transmitted from females only, and have a slightly different genetic code. In Metazoa, the mitochondrial genome typically contains 13 well-conserved intron-less protein coding genes (PCGs), 2 rRNA and 22 tRNA genes (Bernt et al, 2013).…”