Fidelity of DNA polymerases in the detection of intraindividual variation of mitochondrial DNA.

Here we investigated the consequences of PCR amplification errors in the identification of intraindividual mtDNA variation. The bumblebee was chosen as model for the gene amplification tests with two DNA polymerases ( and Q5) presenting different error rates. The amplifications using resulted in a significant increase of singleton haplotypes per individual in comparison to Q5. The sequence characteristics indicated that resulted haplotypes are mostly due to amplification errors. Studies focusing on intraindividual variability should address special attention to the DNA polymerase fidelity to avoid overestimation of heteroplasmic haplotypes.