Cambridge Reference Sequence

The Cambridge Reference Sequence (CRS) for human mitochondrial DNA was first announced in 1981.

[2] A group led by Fred Sanger at the University of Cambridge had sequenced the mitochondrial genome of one woman of European descent[3] during the 1970s, determining it to have a length of 16,569 base pairs (0.0006% of the nuclear human genome) containing some 37 genes and published this sequence in 1981.

[1] When mitochondrial DNA sequencing is used for genealogical purposes, the results are often reported as differences from the revised CRS.

It has a different numbering system with a length of 16,571 base pairs and represents the mitochondrial genome of one African individual.

[7] The RSRS keeps the same numbering system as the CRS, but represents the ancestral genome of Mitochondrial Eve, from which all currently known human mitochondria descend.