Common to all mammalian species, Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is inherited exclusively from the mother. Mutations of this mtDNA occur, often in adaptation for environmental conditions. Sets of mutations shared by a large number of individuals may have an effect on athletic performance but are commonly used to define maternally-linked populations known as clades or haplogroups, and sub-populations known as haplotypes . This has made mtDNA a very useful tool for studying the evol

Just about the best explanation of Thoroughbred mitochondrial DNA as it relates to family numbers (Bruce Lowe) can be found here. http://www.bloodlines.net/TB/PedigreeMatters/Fams/EquineGeneticGenealogy.htm #BruceLowe

A decade ago Emmeline Hill, Dr Patrick Cunningham and others from the Trinity College in Dublin published a seminal paper on thoroughbred mitochondrial DNA. The paper, which caused some controversy at the time showed that the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) did not correspond with pedigree records, that is, as good a job that Bruce Lowe, Bobinski and Shirai had done, the pedigree records were inaccurate at some point in time. Hill found that almost half of the

The concept of a 'mitochondrial eve' is a concept that has been around in human terms for some time. The idea is that we as humans all trace faithfully back to one female, or the 7 Daughters of Eve if you have read Bryan Sykes interesting novel on human mitochondria, and it is borne about by one of the principal achievements of mitochondrial genetics, which is the classification of all modern Europeans into seven groups, the mitochondrial haplogroups. Each haplogroup is defin