"Nuclear-mitochondrial DNA segments (NUMTs) are mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) fragments that have been inserted into the nuclear genome." (Xue et al., 2023)
I would like to know under this definition, segments of NUMTs are inherited maternally for the offspring or they would be inherited from both sides of parents? Also, is there any impact if we use these loci to construct the phylogeny? Thanks for any information.
Once the DNA segment has inserted itself into the nuclear DNA it evolves differently from the mtDNA in the cytoplasm of the female. Now in the nucleus, the NUMT is subject to the same recombination effects of any nuclear gene and to a different set of selective pressures.. It is the physical location of the mtDNA genes in the female cytoplasm of the egg that makes the mtDNA only maternally inherited. The sperm are little more than a nucleus. A NUMT would be incorporated into the sperm and the egg and therefore comes in two copies in the offspring.
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