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"This is around 0.1% of the total genetic code." More like 13% ... check my math ... Most chromosomes have 2 copies per cell. However ... there are many copi

"This is around 0.1% of the total genetic code." More like 13% ... check my math ... Most chromosomes have 2 copies per cell. However ... there are many copies of the mitochondria : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mitochondrial_genetics#Quantity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mitochondrial_genetics#Qu... <i> Each human cell contains approximately 100 mitochondria, giving a total number of mtDNA molecules per human cell of approximately 500.</i> Mitochondira make about 15% of then genetic material in a human cell. total chr1-22+X/Y ~= 6,200,000,000 (6.2 billion, sizeof genome = 3.1B times 2) sizeof one mitochondira : 16569 so ((100)(50016569))/6200000000 = .13362096774193548387

Cogito 12y ago
This calculation is looking at the amount of genetic material in a cell by (essentially) weight. Let's take that as the right way to compare these for a moment. ---- Nuclear genome (no sex chromosones): 2,881,033,286 base pairs Sex chromosones (avg): 262,592,623 base pairs (310,541,120 women, 214,644,126 men) Nuclear genome (avg): 3,143,625,909 base pairs Mitochondrion genome: 16,569 base pairs mtDNA in a cell: 500 ---- The proportion of genetic material in a cell that comes from mtDNA is thus: (total mtDNA) / ((nDNA no sex) * 2 + (nDNA sex) + (total mtDNA)) (16,569 * 500) / (2,881,033,286 * 2 + 262,592,623 + 16,569 * 500) which is 0.00137, or 0.137% If we look at just the amount of information encoded, we get: (mtDNA) / (nDNA + mtDNA) (16,569) / (3,143,625,909 + 16,569) which is 5.2710^-6 or 0.000527%