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Just imagine that mitochondria are an API to a power system and the nucleus is the control system. Sometimes it works out that a foreign mitochondrial component
by iamleppert 12y ago
Just imagine that mitochondria are an API to a power system and the nucleus is the control system. Sometimes it works out that a foreign mitochondrial component (i.e. 3rd party) works well, or maybe there are even whole classes that work well. But we just don't know. Maybe they are directly swappable, but since we don't even understand all the processes that go on and what communication (exactly) takes place we can't say for sure, we just have to go on primitive black-box cohort studies.
- jebus989 12y agoI'd say you're massively selling current knowledge short. Of course in biology you can always go a level deeper and say "but how exactly... " however there's been a lot of research on mitochondria and there are entire centres that study it. In comparison to complex eukaryotic cells, the mitochondria have been see as relatively low-hanging fruit in terms of systems-level modelling (e.g. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6140/1567 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6140/1567) due to their simplicity as a regressed prokaryote with a short circular genome. adden.: here's a nice overview of the biochemistry of a mitochondrion, which has been known for at least a decade (and is taught at A-level or early degree level biology): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3350335/figure/F3/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3350335/figure/F...
- guard-of-terra 12y ago"Sometimes it works out that a foreign mitochondrial component" Every embryo has 1/2 of genes foreign to mother's mitochondrias - with no gene or combination is guaranteed to be non-foreign. If it doesn't cause problems, why would having all foreign genes suddently cause them?