Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 21, 2026

A Highly Scalable Approach to Perform Ecological Surveys of Selfing Caenorhabditis Nematodes
Published on: March 1, 2022
Interspecific variation in mitochondrial serine transfer RNA (UCN) in Euptychiina butterflies (Lepidoptera:
Mario Alejandro Marín1, Andrés López, Sandra Inés Uribe
1Laboratorio de Biología y Sistemática de Insectos, Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Medellín, Medellín, Colombia. mamarin0@unal.edu.co
Abstract:
The nucleotide variation and structural patterns of mitochondrial RNA molecule have been proposed as useful tools in molecular systematics; however, their usefulness is always subject to a proper assessment of homology in the sequence alignment. The present study describes the secondary structure of mitochondrial tRNA for the amino acid serine (UCN) on 13 Euptychiina species and the evaluation of its potential use for evolutionary studies in this group of butterflies. The secondary structure of tRNAs showed variation among the included species except between Hermeuptychia sp1 and sp2. Variation was concentrated in the ribotimidina-pseudouridine-cystosine (TψC), dihydrouridine (DHU) and variable loops and in the DHU and TψC arms. These results suggest this region as a potential marker useful for taxonomic differentiation of species in this group and also confirm the importance of including information from the secondary structure of tRNA to optimize the alignments.
Related Concept Videos
Transfer RNA Synthesis
Each of these chemical modifications is carried by a specific enzyme, post-transcription. All of these enzymes have unique base and site-specificity. Methylation, the most common chemical modification, is carried by at least nine different enzymes, with...
Multi-species Conserved Sequences
Although the genome of each species varies greatly from each other, a few sequences are highly conserved. Such conserved DNA...
RNA Editing
Evolutionary Relationships through Genome Comparisons
Histone Variants at the Centromere
Diversity of Protists I

