High incidence of heteroplasmy in the mtDNA of a natural population of the spider crab Maja brachydactyla

Mitochondria are mostly inherited by maternal via, that is, only mitochondria from eggs are retained in the embryos. However, this general assumption of uniparentally transmitted, homoplasmic and non-recombining mitochondrial genomes is becoming more and more controversial. The presence of different...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2020-03, Vol.15 (3), p.e0230243-e0230243
Main Authors: Rodríguez-Pena, Elba, Verísimo, Patricia, Fernández, Luis, González-Tizón, Ana, Bárcena, Covadonga, Martínez-Lage, Andrés
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arthropods
Autophagy
Biology and life sciences
Commercial species
Crustaceans
Eggs
Embryos
Fisheries
Fisheries management
Fishery management
Genomes
Heteroplasmy
Hybridization
Maternal inheritance
Mitochondria
Mitochondrial DNA
Mollusks
Mutation
Population number
Research and Analysis Methods
Resource management
Sperm
Vertebrates
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Summary:Mitochondria are mostly inherited by maternal via, that is, only mitochondria from eggs are retained in the embryos. However, this general assumption of uniparentally transmitted, homoplasmic and non-recombining mitochondrial genomes is becoming more and more controversial. The presence of different sequences of mtDNA within a cell or individual, known as heteroplasmy, is increasingly reported in several taxon of animals, such as molluscs, arthropods and vertebrates. In this work, a considerable frequency of heteroplasmy were detected in the COI and 16S genes of the spider crab Maja brachydactyla, possibly associated to hybridisation with the congeneric species Maja squinado. This finding is a fact to keep in mind before addressing molecular analyses based on mitochondrial markers, since the assumption of maternal inheritance could lead to erroneous results. As M. brachydactyla is a commercial species, heteroplasmy is an important aspect to take into account for the fisheries management of this resource, since effective population size could be overestimated.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0230243