Intraspecific DNA sequence variation of the mitochondrial control region of white sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus).
Intraspecific sequence variation in the D-loop region of mtDNA in white sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus), a relict North American fish species, was examined in 27 individuals from populations of the Columbia and Fraser rivers. Thirty-three varied nucleotide positions were present in a 462-nucleotide D-loop sequence, amplified using the polymerase chain reaction. Bootstrapped neighbor-joining and maximum-parsimony trees of sequences from 19 haplotypes suggest that the two populations have recently diverged. This is consistent with the hypothesis that the Columbia River, a Pleistocene refugium habitat, was the source of founders for the Fraser River after the last glacial recession. On the basis of a divergence time of 10-12 thousand years ago, the estimated substitution rate of the white sturgeon D-loop region is 1.1-1.3 x 10(-7) nucleotides/site/year, which is comparable to rates for hypervariable sequences in the human D-loop region. Furthermore, the ratio of mean percent nucleotide differences in the D-loop (2.27%) to that in whole mtDNA (0.54%, as estimated from restriction-enzyme data) is 4.3, which is similar to the fourfold-to-fivefold-higher substitution rate estimated for the human D-loop. The high nucleotide substitution rate of the hypervariable region indicates that the vertebrate D-loop has potential as a genetic marker in molecular population studies.
Brown
J R
JR
Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University.
Beckenbach
A T
AT
Smith
M J
MJ
D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D005075:Biological Evolution; D001955:British Columbia; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics*; D005399:Fishes / Q000235:genetics*; D005819:Genetic Markers; D014644:Genetic Variation; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D013045:Species Specificity; D014861:Washington
D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial; D005819:Genetic Markers