THE COMPLETE MITOCHONDRIAL-DNA SEQUENCE OF THE PIG (SUS SCROFA)

The complete mitochondrial genome sequence of the pig, Sus scrofa, was determined. The length of the sequence presented is 16,679 nucleotide s. This figure is not absolute, however, due to pronounced heteroplasm y caused by variable numbers of the motif GTACACGTGC in the control re gion of different molecules. A phylogenetic study was performed on the concatenated amino acid and nucleotide sequences of 12 protein-coding genes of the mitochondrial genome. The analysis identified the pig (S uiformes) as a sister group of a cow/whale clade, making Artiodactyla paraphyletic. The split between pig and cow/whale was molecularly date d at 65 million years before present.