Simulating the mitochondrial DNA inheritance

Summ. Analysing the current mitochondrial DNA patterns biologists have conc luded that we all descend from the same mitochondrial Eve, who is postulate d to have lived around 200.000 years ago. Such a result is in agreement wit h the coalescence theory. Here we represent the mitochondrial DNAs as bitst rings that are maternally transmitted with mutations, and that may also par ticipate in the selection process for survival together with the nuclear DN As. We end up with the same common ancestor, whose mitochondrial DNA can be traced back from the current population, despite the mitochondrial mutatio ns considered. For a given mutation rate, the degree of confidence of this tracing-back process increases even further when the selection mechanism is included.