Abstract: Paternal transmission of mtDNA observed in animals will challenge the cornerstone of mitochondrial genetics-strict maternal inheritance and will affect the biohistorical and phylogenetic inferences based on mtDNA data. Thus, any studies showing paternal transmission of mtDNAz would gain much concern in this field. MtDNA lineages present in interspecific hybrids provide an ideal model to trace paternal mitochondrial leakage. In this study, we analyzed mtDNA lineages in domestic fowls (Gallus gallus, N=22), guinea fowls (Numida meleagris, N=17) and mule-chicken (an interfamilar hybrid between domestic fowls and guinea fowls, N=25) to test the transmission profile of sperm mtDNA. Length difference was found in mtDNA control region sequences of domestic fowls (539bp) and guinea fowls (498bp) by using same primer pair for amplification and sequencing, while the homologous sequences in mule-chicken were either same to those of domestic fowls or guinea fowls. No mule-chicken was found to be heteroplasmic for both mtDNAs from domestic fowls and guinea fowls. Our results failed to detect the paternal leakage of mtDNA. We speculated that the recent reported cases of mtDNA paternal transmission in a human sporadic patient and bird (great tit) were rare and it would not alter the bedrock principles of mitochondrial genetics.
Y.P. Liu and Q. Zhu , 2008. No Evidence for Paternal Leakage of mtDNA in Inter-Specific Hybrids of the Domestic Fowls (Gallus gallus) and Guinea Fowls (Numida meleagris). Research Journal of Animal Sciences, 2: 53-56.