Mitochondrial Non‐Mendelian Inheritance: Evolutionary Origin and Consequences

C William Birky, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA

Published online: September 2006

DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0006129

Alleles of mitochondrial genes segregate during vegetative (mitotic) divisions as a consequence of the random manner in which mitochondrial genomes are replicated and partitioned at cell division. This is probably an evolutionary relic of their endosymbiotic origin. Uniparental inheritance of mitochondrial genes in humans is a result of oogamy and degradation of paternal mitochondria in the egg, but different mechanisms have evolved in other organisms.

Keywords: uniparental inheritance; maternal inheritance; vegetative segregation; inheritance of mitochondrial genes; heteroplasmy

 References
    book Avise JC (2000) Phylogeography: The History and Origin of Species. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
    Barton NH and Charlesworth B (1998) Why sex and recombination? Science 281: 1987–1990.
    book Birky Jr CW (1991) "Evolution and population genetics of organelle genes: mechanisms and models". In: Selander RK, Clark AG and Whittam TS (eds.) Evolution at the Molecular Level, pp. 112–134. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates.
    Birky Jr CW (1994) Relaxed and stringent genomes: why cytoplasmic genes don't obey Mendel's laws. Journal of Heredity 85: 355–365.
    Birky Jr CW (1996) Uniparental inheritance of mitochondrial and chloroplast genes: mechanisms and evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 92: 11331–11338.
    Birky Jr CW (2001) The inheritance of genes in mitochondria and chloroplasts: laws, mechanisms, and models. Annual Review of Genetics 35: 128–148.
    Chinnery PF, Thorburn DR, Samuels DC, et al. (2000) The inheritance of mitochondrial DNA heteroplasmy: random drift, selection or both? Trends in Genetics 16: 500–505.
    Gray MW (1993) Origin and evolution of organelle genomes. Current Opinion in Genetics and Development 3: 884–890.
    Hey J (2000) Human mitochondrial DNA recombination: can it be true? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 15: 181–182.
    book Singh KK (1998) Mitochondrial DNA Mutations in Aging, Disease and Cancer. Austin, TX: Landes Biosciences.
 Further Reading
    Eyre-Walker A (2000) Do mitochondria recombine in humans? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences 355: 1573–1580.
    book Gillham NW (1994) Organelle Genes and Genomes. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
    Jenuth JP, Peterson AC and Shoubridge EA (1997) Tissue-specific selection for different mtDNA genotypes in heteroplasmic mice. Nature Genetics 16: 93–95.
    Parker GA (1978) Selection on non-random fusion of gametes during the evolution of anisogamy. Journal of Theoretical Biology 73: 1–28.
    Skibinski DOF, Gallagher C and Beynon CM (1994) Sex-limited mitochondrial DNA transmission in the marine mussel Mytilus edulis. Genetics 138: 801–809.
    Zouros E, Ball AO, Saavedra C and Freeman KR (1994) An unusual type of mitochondrial DNA inheritance in the blue mussel Mytilus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 91: 7463–7467.

Related Sub-Topics:

Cell Compartments and Cellular Organelles | Evolutionary Genomics | Molecular Evolution | Nonchromosomal DNA | Evolution of Coding and Functional Modules
Contact Editor close
Submit a note to the editor about this article by filling in the form below.

* Required Field

Article Title: Mitochondrial Non‐Mendelian Inheritance: Evolutionary Origin and Consequences
 
How to Cite close
Birky, C William(Sep 2006) Mitochondrial Non‐Mendelian Inheritance: Evolutionary Origin and Consequences. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0006129]