The putative origin of heavy strand replication (oriH) in mitochondrial DNA is highly conserved among the teleost fishes.

We have determined the nucleotide sequence of a 645 bp EcoRI-HindIII fragment from mitochondrial DNA of Arctic charr, Salvelinus alpinus. The sequence includes the tRNA(Phe) gene, part of the small subunit ribosomal RNA gene as well as the putative origin of heavy strand replication located at the major non-coding region, the D-loop containing region. Upon comparison of the Arctic charr sequence to mitochondrial DNA sequences from several distantly related teleost fishes, the origin of heavy strand replication was found to be highly conserved among the teleost fishes.