Why do mitochondria retain their own genome?

Friday, July 24, 2015 - 09:50 in Biology & Nature

It sounds like science fiction to suggest that every cell in the human body is occupied by a tiny genome-equipped organelle, with which we exist in symbiosis. But in actuality, eukaryotic life is dependent on mitochondria, which provide energy to the cell in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Over millennia, the genomes of mitochondria evolved under selection for minimal gene content, but researchers have been unable to determine why some but not all mitochondrial genes have been transferred to the nuclear genome.

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