EVOLUTIONARY RELATIONSHIPS AMONG FIVE SUBSPECIES OF MUS MUSCULUS BASED ON RESTRICTION ENZYME CLEAVAGE PATTERNS OF MITOCHONDRIAL DNA

Hiromichi Yonekawa ¹, Kazuo Moriwaki ², Osamu Gotoh ¹, Jun-Ichi Hayashi ¹, Junko Watanabe ¹, Nobumoto Miyashita ², Michael L. Petras ³, and Yusaku Tagashira ¹

¹ Department of Biochemistry, Saitama Cancer Center Research Institute, Kitaadachi-Gun, Saitama, 362 Japan
² Department of Cytogenetics, National Institute of Genetics, Yata, Mishima, Shizuoka, 411 Japan
³ Department of Biology, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada

The intra- and intersubspecific genetic distances between five subspecies of Mus musculus were estimated from restriction enzyme cleavage patterns or maps of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). The European subspecies, M. m. domesticus and Asian subspecies, M. m. bactrianus, M. m. castaneus, M. m. molossinus and M. m. urbanus were examined. For each subspecies, except M. m. urbanus, at least two local races from widely separated localities were examined. Intrasubspecific heterogeneity was found in the mtDNA cleavage patterns of M. m. bactrianus and M. m. castaneus. M. m. molossinus and M. m. domesticus, however, revealed no intrasubspecific heterogeneity. Four of the subspecies had distinct cleavage patterns. The fifth, M. m. urbanus, had cleavage patterns identical to those of M. m. castaneus with several enzymes. Estimates of genetic distances between the various races and subspecies were obtained by comparing cleavage maps of the mtDNAs with various restriction enzymes. Nucleotide sequence divergences of mtDNA between local races were estimated to be less than 0.4% in M. m. bactrianus and less than 0.3% in M. m. castaneus. The times of divergence of both subspecies were calculated to be 0.1–0.2 x 10⁶ years. These values suggest that the intrasubspecific divergence began some 0.1–0.2 x 10⁶ years ago. On the other hand, nucleotide sequence divergences between European subspecies M. m. domesticus and Asian subspecies M. m. bactrianus and M. m. castaneus were 7.1% and 5.8%, respectively. The times of divergence were calculated to be 2.1–2.6 x 10⁶ years. Further, the nucleotide sequence divergence and time of divergence between M. m. molossinus and the other two Asian subspecies were comparable to those between M. m. molossinus and M. m. domesticus (about 3% and 1 x 10⁶ years, respectively). These results suggest that M. m. molossinus is situated in a unique evolutionary position among Asian subspecies.

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