The mitochondrial genome of the white-rot fungus Flammulina velutipes

Mitochondria are important cellular organelles in eu-karyotic cells and play a crucial role in the generation of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) for biological energy through oxidative phosphorylation. As with chloro-plasts, mitochondria have their own DNA and are self-replicating organelles (Alberts et al., 2002). In animal cells, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is maternally inher-ited. However, mtDNA in fungi is inherited by one of two types of mechanisms: uniparental inheritance (UPI) or biparental inheritance (BPI) (Basse, 2010; Birky, 1975, 2001; Fukuda et al., 1995; Matsumoto and Fukumasa-Nakai, 1996). Fungal mtDNA, which has various sizes ranging from 19 to 121 kb, tends to have a faster evolutionary rate than nuclear DNA (Brown et al., 1982; Bruns and Szaro, 1992). Mitochondrial cyto-chrome