Mitogenomics: digging deeper with complete mitochondrial genomes

Mitochondrial genomes are being used to study increasingly ancient divergen ces among animal groups. Recent studies of complete mitochondrial DNA seque nces have arrived at somewhat heretical conclusions, raising questions abou t the use of mitochondrial gene sequences for studying the relationships am ong highly divergent lineages. Other studies have documented convergent evo lution of mitochondrial gene order, casting doubt on the use of these chara cters for phylogenetic analysis. The use of mitochondrial genomes for study ing such deep divergences is coming under increased scrutiny, and these nov el results need to be confirmed with data from nuclear genes.