Mitochondrial DNA can come from both parents

Re:Mitochondrial DNA can come from both parents by ghshephard on Thursday November 29, 2018 @10:04AM (#18560652)

I'm not sure how much of a "plot twist" this is - when I took my biology course decades ago, it was explained to me that both maternal and paternal mitochondria were passed on, but the Egg is so much larger than the sperm, that the impact of of paternal mitochondria, and amount passed on, was relatively minor. I guess the interesting detail here is that the amount present raises to the level of catching a DNA scan.

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Re:Mitochondrial DNA can come from both parents by ArchTypical on Thursday November 29, 2018 @01:06PM (#18562272)

> I'm not sure how much of a "plot twist" this is

I was taught differently in 1998.

There was the press coverage of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(Australopithecus) which was referenced in a scene of https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2872732/

It can be said that it's a plot twist that was stoked for decades.

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Re:Mitochondrial DNA can come from both parents by mbreese on Thursday November 29, 2018 @02:07PM (#18562887)

I remember being taught that there was a paternal component of mtDNA, but that the contribution was really small (<10%, maybe <1%). However, I don't remember if this was undergrad (~ 1998) or grad (~2000)... probably grad school.

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Re:Mitochondrial DNA can come from both parents by ArchTypical on Thursday November 29, 2018 @02:25PM (#18563089)

> probably grad school.

I was an undergrad, which still puts us both above the vast majority in education.

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Re:Mitochondrial DNA can come from both parents by eridan2 on Thursday November 29, 2018 @10:18AM (#18560786)

it is not about the size; paternal mtdna dies after fertilization: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/paternal-mito...

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Re:Mitochondrial DNA can come from both parents by mbreese on Thursday November 29, 2018 @02:05PM (#18562867)

That study was in C. elegans. Has anything similar been done in mammals?

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Re:Mitochondrial DNA can come from both parents by josephpmay on Thursday November 29, 2018 @12:46PM (#18562052)

Interesing. That’s not what I was taught in biology class in the 2010’s.

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Re:Mitochondrial DNA can come from both parents by eggie on Thursday November 29, 2018 @06:42PM (#18565261)

I agree. However, it can be hard to observe, even in the large, public sequencing data that is currently available. There is a large amount of mtDNA inserted into the nuclear genome, and this can make it appear that there is rampant heteroplasmy until you control for it. The actual contribution is extremely hard to observe.

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