Maternal modulation of the inheritable meiosis I error Dipl I in mouse oocytes is associated with the type of mitochondrial DNA

The ovulation of diploid oocytes, abnormally arrested at or during the first meiotic division, is an inheritable trait (DiplI) in mice and modulated by a maternally transmitted factor. By repeated backcrossing, mouse strains with identical nuclear encoded genes and differing only in their mitochondrial genomes can be created. NMB mice represent such a strain having acquired the nuclear genome of C57BL/6J but still possessing mitochondria and therewith mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of NMRI/Bom, their female progenitor. The strains NMB and C57BL/6J were used to characterize a new mitochondrial trait, namely the ability to modulate the expression of the inheritable meiosis I error Dipl I in oocytes. We show that an increased rate of ovulated diploid oocytes is associated with the mtDNA type of C57BL/6J. These results corroborate the assumption that mitochondria do play an important role in meiosis of mammalian oocytes and hence seem to be involved also in the orderly segregation of chromosomes.