Interesting question. I researched this a bit now and the phenomenon is termed "numt" for "nuclear mitochondrial DNA". This term descrives the transfer of cytoplasmic mitochondrial DNA sequences into the separate nuclear genome of a eukaryotic organism. It seems that most of these sequences are inactive. This [list][1] at pseudogene.net has a large number of sequences in a lot of different organisms, for humans insertion between 0,2 and 14,2 kb are listed. For more information you can go to the list of papers I list below, this should be a good starting point: - [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21151557][2] - [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11369110][3] - [http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0020273][4] - [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15014143][5] - [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18721785][6] The papers should all be accessible, if not, let me know. [1]: http://www.pseudogene.net/ [2]: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21151557 [3]: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11369110 [4]: http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0020273 [5]: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15014143 [6]: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18721785