title: Evolution of heteroplasmy at a mitochondrial tandem repeat locus in cultured rabbit cells.
abstract: Surveys of animal mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) polymorphism reveal that mtDNA length variation is common. Much of this variation involves non-coding tandem repeat arrays in the main control region of the molecule. Despite a high mutation rate, generating systematic individual mtDNA length heteroplasmy, the number of repeats in a tandem array is maintained within a narrow range in lagomorphs. To investigate the basis for this apparent paradox, we studied the evolution of mtDNA length polymorphism in several rabbit cell clones containing different proportions of mtDNA, with four or five 153-bp repeats. Our data show that equivalent amounts of two mtDNA molecular types are not stable (evolution towards a predominant type being the rule) and that other types remain represented, maintaining the length polymorphism. The data suggest that mtDNA molecules with a longer array of repeats have a replicative advantage that could depend on the nuclear background.
authors.affiliation: Phylogénie, Bioinformatique et Génome, UMR 7622, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 75252 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Didier
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Casane
authors.forename: Monique
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Guéride
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005787:Gene Frequency; D040961:Genetic Drift; D009154:Mutation; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D011817:Rabbits; D020080:Tandem Repeat Sequences
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial