“…It usually contains a remarkably conserved set of 37 genes including 22 encoding tRNAs, 2 encoding rRNAs (lrRNA and srRNA), and 13 encoding proteins that are involved in electron transport and oxidative phosphorylation (Wolstenholme, 1992;Boore, 1999). The mitochondrial genome is highly economized with few sections of noncoding DNA, intergenic regions, or repetitive sequences (Harrison, 1989;Lunt et al, 1998aLunt et al, , 1998b, except for the A + T-rich region (also called control region) which is the most variable region in both A + T content and length of mtDNA due to the insertions/deletions of nucleotides, variation in copy numbers of sequences repeated in tandem and extensive length variation of a variable domain (Zhang et al, 1995;Rondan Duenas et al, 2002;Wei et al, 2010aWei et al, , 2010b. Additionally, the control region harbors some essential elements that play an important role in the initiation of transcription and replication (Wolstenholme, 1992;Zhang et al, 1995;da Silva et al, 2009).…”