DISCREPANCY IN DIVERGENCE OF THE MITOCHONDRIAL AND NUCLEAR GENOMES OF DROSOPHILA-TEISSIERI AND DROSOPHILA-YAKUBA

Restriction sites were compared in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) molecules from representatives of two closely related species of fruit flies: nine strains of Drosophila teissieri and eight strains of Drosophila yakuba. Nucleotide diversities among D. teissieri strains and among D. yakuba strains were 0.07% and 0.03%, respectively, and the nucleotide distance between the species was 0.22%. Also determined was the nucleotide sequence of a 2305-nucleotide pari (ntp) segment of the mtDNA molecule of D. teissieri that contains the noncoding adenine+thymine (A+T)-rich region (1091 ntp) as well as the genes for the mitochondrial small-subunit rRNA, tRNAf-met, tRNAgln, and tRNAile, and portions of the ND2 and tRNAval genes. This sequence differs from the corresponding segment of the D. yakuba mtDNA by base substitutions at 0.1% and 0.8% of the positions in the coding and noncoding regions, respectively. The higher divergence due to base substitutions in the A+T-rich region is accompanied by a greater number of insertions/deletions than in the coding regions. From alignment of the D. teissieri A+T-rich sequence with those of D. yakuba and Drosophila virilis, it appears that the 40% of this sequence that lies adjacent to the tRNAile gene has been highly conserved. Divergence between the entire D. teissieri and D. yakuba mtDNA molecules, estimated from the sequences, was 0.3%; this value is close to the value (0.22%) obtained from the restriction analysis, but 10 times lower than the value estimated from published DNA hybridization results. From consideration of the relationships of mitochondrial nucleotide distance and allozyme genetic distance found among seven species of the Drosophila melanogaster subgroup, the mitochondrial nucleotide distance observed for D. teissieri and D. yakuba is anomalously low in relation to the nuclear genetic distance. © 1990 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.