title: Genetic aspects of mitochondrial genome evolution.
abstract: Many years of extensive studies of metazoan mitochondrial genomes have established differences in gene arrangements and genetic codes as valuable phylogenetic markers. Understanding the underlying mechanisms of replication, transcription and the role of the control regions which cause e.g. different gene orders is important to assess the phylogenetic signal of such events. This review summarises and discusses, for the Metazoa, the general aspects of mitochondrial transcription and replication with respect to control regions as well as several proposed models of gene rearrangements. As whole genome sequencing projects accumulate, more and more observations about mitochondrial gene transfer to the nucleus are reported. Thus occurrence and phylogenetic aspects concerning nuclear mitochondrial-like sequences (NUMTS) is another aspect of this review.
authors.affiliation: Parallel Computing and Complex Systems Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Leipzig, Augustusplatz 10, D-04109 Leipzig, Germany. Electronic address: bernt@informatik.uni-leipzig.de.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bernt
authors.forename: Anke
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Braband
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Schierwater
authors.forename: Peter F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Stadler
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000235:genetics; D004260:DNA Repair; D004261:DNA Replication; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D015321:Gene Rearrangement; D005815:Genetic Code; D054629:Genome, Mitochondrial; D008928:Mitochondria / Q000235:genetics; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010802:Phylogeny; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D059467:Transcriptome
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial
keywords: Chromosome structure; Gene content; Genetic code; Phylogenomics; Replication; Transcriptome