Paternal transmission of mitochondrial DNA in interspecific crosses of Drosophila simulans

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Copyright: Nafisinia, Mohammad Michael
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Abstract
Arguably, the three central pillars mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) evolution that make it a powerful tool for evolutionary studies are maternal inheritance, lack of recombination and high copy number. While it is likely that these three pillars cooccur in most higher eukaryotes it is important to consider mechanisms causing these mainstays to fail. One such mechanism causing failure of strict maternal inheritance is paternal leakage. The occurrence of paternal leakage followed by its transmission to offspring may bias the interpretation of mtDNA as a molecular marker by introducing additional haplotypes into the mtDNA pool of a single population and create individuals with more than one type of mtDNA (heteroplasmy). The presence of paternal mtDNA can potentially affect a variety of disciplines including evolutionary genetics, molecular ecology, biogeography, mitochondrial medicine, and forensic science. Here, I examined the frequency of paternal mtDNA transmission in intraspecific crosses of Drosophila simulans harbouring distinct mtDNA haplotypes. First I optimized two primer sets. In initial optimization studies I could detect as little as 0.1% paternal mtDNA in an individual. Second I assayed a total of 33 individuals from each of the 62 intraspecific crosses. Two crosses and six individuals present strong evidence for mtDNA paternal leakage indicating the paternal leakage was in the order of 0.3%. The main limitations of this study were the detection levels of the specific primers and the need to complete the reciprocal cross to corroborate the results presented. This experiment clearly showed the notable contribution of paternal mtDNA leakage to the inheritance of mitochondria. Further study regarding estimation of sperm/oocyte content and the mechanisms leading to elimination of paternal mtDNA such as ubiquitination of sperm mitochondria in different species may lead to better understanding of this mechanism.
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Nafisinia, Mohammad Michael
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2011
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Masters Thesis
UNSW Faculty
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