[SunkenCiv]

Widespread recombination in published animal mtDNA sequences
Tsaousis AD, Martin DP, Ladoukakis ED, Posada D, Zouros E.
Jan 12 2005
Mol Biol Evol.
2005 Apr;
22(4):925-33.
PubMed Services

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) recombination has been observed in several animal species, but there are doubts as to whether it is common or only occurs under special circumstances. Animal mtDNA sequences retrieved from public databases were unambiguously aligned and rigorously tested for evidence of recombination. At least 30 recombination events were detected among 186 alignments examined. Recombinant sequences were found in invertebrates and vertebrates, including primates. It appears that mtDNA recombination may occur regularly in the animal cell but rarely produces new haplotypes because of homoplasmy. Common animal mtDNA recombination would necessitate a reexamination of phylogenetic and biohistorical inference based on the assumption of clonal mtDNA transmission. Recombination may also have an important role in producing and purging mtDNA mutations and thus in mtDNA-based diseases and senescence.

[Varda]

I'm looking around for evidence of mtDNA recombination and its possible effect on the human genome and have found nothing so far. Panda's thumb talks about it,
"I asked Reed Cartright - a real biologist - to work out what effect paternal recombination of mtDNA means to Mitochondrial Eve. It turns out, as mathematical modeling often does, to be surprising. It makes very little difference at all. The following graph shows that until the rate of individual recombination is very high, paternal mtDNA does very little to estimates of mtEve.

The graph shows how the recombination of nuclear DNA affects estimates of the most recent common ancestor (TMRCA). 1e-8 (1 in 10 to the 8th power, or one in each 100 million) is the estimate for nuclear recombination rates. MTDNA rates are for many reasons many-fold less than this. So the effect is at worst minimal, and at best affects mtEve not at all."