Dissecting the sequential evolution of a selfish mitochondrial genome in Caenorhabditis elegans data

Mitochondrial genomes exist in a nested hierarchy of populations where mitochondrial variants are subject to genetic drift and selection at each level of organization, sometimes engendering conflict between different levels of selection, and between the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes. Deletion mutants in the Caenorhabditis elegans mitochondrial genome can reach high intracellular frequencies despite strongly detrimental effects on fitness. During a mutation accumulation (MA) experiment in C. elegans, a 499 bp deletion in ctb-1 rose to 90% frequency within cells while significantly reducing fitness. During the experiment, the deletion-bearing mtDNA acquired three additional mutations in nd5, namely two single insertion frameshift mutations in a homopolymeric run, and a base substitution. Despite an additional fitness cost of these secondary mutations, all deletion-bearing molecules contained the nd5 mutations at the termination of the MA experiment. The presence of mutant mtDNA was as..., , , # Dissecting the Sequential Evolution of a Selfish Mitochondrial Genome in Caenorhabditis elegans Data

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1vhhmgr2z](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1vhhmgr2z)

This data set contains four csv files

Fitness_data.xlsx contains raw measurements for four fitness traits measured in five populations of *C. elegans.*

Heteroplasmic_frequencies_Fig3.csv contains four tables of heteroplasmic frequencies of mitochondrial mutations from a mutation accumulation (MA) replay experiment

mtDNA_copynumber_backcrossed_lines_Fig4.csv contains a table of mitochondrial DNA copy numbers per nuclear genome in backcrossed lines normalized to the average of the wild-type N2 copy number

mtDNA_copynumber_MA_lines_Fig4.csv contains a table of mitochondrial DNA copy numbers per nuclear genome in MA lines normalized to the average of the wild-type N2 copy number

## Description of the data and file structure

* Fitness_data.xlsx
* ```
These lines were created by backcrossing the ...