4 ms·
How do mitochondria replicate their own DNA? Do they somehow have the rest of the cell do it, or do they contain/produce and use all of the necessary enzymes/p
by Crito 12y ago
How do mitochondria replicate their own DNA? Do they somehow have the rest of the cell do it, or do they contain/produce and use all of the necessary enzymes/proteins/base-pairs/etc to do it by themselves?
The relationship between them and their host cell almost seems similar to ant-fungus mutualism.
- schoen 12y agoThis is actually a now-standard theory of the origin of mitochondria (that they were originally separate organisms): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiogenesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiogenesis
- jforman 12y agoAll of the DNA replication machinery that operates in mitochondria is encoded in the nucleus, translated in the cytoplasm, and then transported into the mitochondrion: "The remaining ~1500 mitochondrial proteins are encoded in the nucleus, including all proteins needed for replication and expression of the small mtDNA genome (Falkenberg et al., 2007)" from http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0092867409012458/1-s2.0-S0092867409012458-main.pdf?_tid=96f8c212-ac13-11e4-ac6b-00000aacb35e&acdnat=1423016266_587dd8a75f971860b976b3ea016b270f http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0092867409012458/1-s2.0-S009286740901...