Mitochondrial division is also guided by genes in the nucleus and through cytoplasmic ribosomes. How does this process take place?
- Nuclear and mitochondrial DNA are thought to be of separate evolutionary origin, but they are actually not.
- Each mitochondrion is estimated to contain 2–10 mtDNA copies.
- In the cells of extant organisms, the vast majority of the proteins present in the mitochondria are coded for by nuclear DNA, but the genes for some, if not most, of them are thought to have originally been of bacterial origin, having since been transferred to the eukaryotic nucleus during evolution.
- The cell nucleus contains all of the cell’s genome, except for a small fraction of mitochondrial DNA, organized as multiple long linear DNA molecules in a complex with a large variety of proteins, such as histones, to form chromosomes.
- Mitochondrial division is thus, regulated by the genes present in the nucleus.