cpDNA and mtDNA Primers in Plants

Abstract

Because they are haploid and evolve clonally, chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) and plant mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) are a source of original markers that are very useful for studies of phylogeny and population genetics. Both are large molecules but they evolve very differently. cpDNA is a circular molecule (155 844 bp in Nicotiana tabacum) (1), which is highly conserved in size and structure. It usually possesses two long inverted repeats (IR) which separate a large single copy region (LSC) from a small single copy region (SSC). Plant mtDNA genomes vary enormously in size and gene arrangement, but nucleotide substitution rates of mtDNA genes are much lower than those of cpDNA sequences. Cite this chapter as: Petit R.J., Demesure B., Dumolin S. (1998) cpDNA and mtDNA Primers in Plants. In: Karp A., Isaac P.G., Ingram D.S. (eds) Molecular Tools for Screening Biodiversity. Springer, Dordrecht