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Abstract
Background and aims. The mitochondrial control region (CR) was studied across five marsupialian orders, in order to give a detailed overview of its features.
Results. The CR is organised into three domains similar to the CR of placental mammals. However, the conservation of different features among the marsupial orders is in general more strict. In the first domain, two conserved blocks extended termination-associated sequences (ETAS 1 and ETAS 2) are present in all marsupial orders. In the third domain, the three conserved sequence blocks (CSB 1, CSB 2 and CSB 3) are present and complete, with CSB 1 being duplicated in four of five marsupial orders.
Conclusions. The nucleotide frequency and secondary structures of the repeats were typical for marsupial species. The repeats are generally AT-rich except in Dasyuridae and Paucituberculata, which show a significant increase in GC content.
Acknowledgements
The author's sincere thanks to Dr Axel Janke for help with improving the later versions of this manuscript. Thanks also to Dr Juergen Schmitz for thoughts on ORFs, and Ms Van Tran for help with formatting the manuscript. The author is thankful for the comments of two anonymous reviewers. Financial support for this study has been obtained through the Jörgen Lindström fund and the Royal Physiographic Society in Lund.
Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.