Abstract
We report herein the characterization of a nuclear paralog of a fragment of the mitochondrial genome (a numt) in two closely related species of lampreys (Ichthyomyzon spp.). Although numts have been characterized in several vertebrate taxa, numts have yet to be reported for fishes in general. Given the phylogenetic position of lampreys relative to other vertebrates, the presence of numts within the lamprey genome is either evidence of an ancestral trait lost in other fishes but uniquely retained in agnathans and amniotes, or (more intriguingly) a product of the genome rearrangements these animals undergo during development.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank our friends and colleagues who contributed specimens (T. Buchinger, D. Herzog, and S. Miehls), assisted with collections (G. Adams), and provided locality information from their personal collection notes (D. Eisenhour, B. Fisher, and G. Weddle). K. Conway and H. Prestridge kindly provided the I. gagei specimen from Texas (TCWC17259.01). This work was partially funded by an internal Grant to KJD and resources supplied by the Department of Biology, University of Southern Indiana.
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Strange, R.M., Delaney, K.J. First Report of a Mitochondrial Pseudogene in Agnathan Vertebrates (Cyclostomata: Petromyzontidae). J Mol Evol 86, 187–189 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-018-9835-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-018-9835-y