Novel mitochondrial genomes in Brassica napus somatic hybrids

The mitochondrial genomes of nine male-fertile and two Ogura cytoplasmic male-sterile (cms) Brassica napus somatic hybrids were probed with 46 mitochondrial DNA fragments. The distribution of information obtained from each fusion partner was not random. Several regions, including the coxI gene and a major recombination repeat sequence, were always derived from the Brassica campestris fusion partner, and some regions were always derived from the Ogura mitochondrial genome. Novel fragments occurred in seven distinct regions. Some of the rearrangement breakpoints were located near the evolutionary breakpoints relating the mitochondrial genomes of the Brassica species. The sizes of the mitochondrial genomes in the somatic hybrids ranged from 224.8 to 285.3 kb. A direct correlation between a specific gene and the cms phenotype was not observed; however, a possible cms-associated region was identified. It corresponds to a region that was identified through analysis of fertile revertants from a cms B. napus cybrid.