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Improvements to the mitochondrial restriction maps for Italian and africanized honey bees

M.C. Arias^I,II; A.E.E. Soares^II; F.G. Nóbrega^I

^IDepartamento de Bioquímica, Instituto de Química, Universidade de São Paulo, Caixa Postal 20780, 01498 São Paulo, SP, Brasil. Send correspondence to F.G.N.
^IIDepartamento de Genética, Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, 14049 Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brasil

ABSTRACT

Mitochondrial DNA from New World descendents of the honey bee subspecies Apis mellifera scutellata (africanized) and Apis mellifera ligustica (italian) was extracted and characterized by digestion with the restriction endonucleases Acc I, BamH I, Bgl II, Cla I, EcoR I, EcoR V, Hind III, Pst I and Xho I. The results obtained allowed the construction of a circular map about 16,600 base pairs long for these subspecies. The two genomes could be distinguished by digestion with the enzymes Acc I, Bgl II and EcoR I. The mitochondria) DNA of the African subspecies presented no sites for the endonucleases BstE II, Kpn I, Sac I and Sty I.

Keywords: Mitochondrial restriction maps; Honey bees.

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