Skip to main content
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences logoLink to Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
. 2001 Jul 22;268(1475):1533–1538. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2001.1677

Mitochondrial genomes of a bandicoot and a brushtail possum confirm the monophyly of australidelphian marsupials.

M J Phillips 1, Y H Lin 1, G L Harrison 1, D Penny 1
PMCID: PMC1088774  PMID: 11454299

Abstract

Recent molecular analyses suggest that the position of bandicoots is the major difficulty in determining the root of the tree of extant marsupials. To resolve this, we analyse mitochondrial genome sequences of a bandicoot (Isoodon macrourus) and a brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) together with the previously available marsupial mitochondrial genomes, the Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana) and the wallaroo (Macropus robustus). Analyses of mitochondrial protein-coding and RNA genes strongly support the bandicoot as sister to the wallaroo and the brushtail possum. This result, combined with other recent molecular analyses, confirms the monophyly of Australidelphia (Australasian marsupials plus Dromiciops from South America). Further, RY coding was found to nullify AGCT coding nucleotide composition bias.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (139.0 KB).


Articles from Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society are provided here courtesy of The Royal Society

RESOURCES