A BIOINFORMATICS STUDY OF NUCLEAR INSERTS OF mtDNA (NUMTS) IN CHIMPANZEE (Pan troglodytes) ORIGIN, FRQUENCY AND PHYLOGENETIC COMPARISON.

Abstract

Analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence variation has been used for more than two decades as a tool to understand the recent phylogeny of many different species or populations, including chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Contemporary taxonomists recognize three subspecies of chimpanzees: Pan troglodytes verus from west Africa, and the poorly differentiated P.t. troglodytes and P.t. .s.chweinfurthii subspecies from central and east Africa, respectively). mtDNA sequences have been used to analyze the geographical patterns of genetic variation among African chimpanzee populations and to infer subspecies identities of captive chimpanzees. However, a potential source of significant and far-reaching problems in the evolutionary analysis of mtDNA arises from the presence of translocated pieces of mtDNA into the nuclear genome. Accurate phylogenetic analysis using mtDNA sequences requires a determination of whether putative mtDNA sequences are contaminated by numts.