The mitochondrial genome is the genetic material of the mitochondria. The mitochondria are organelles that reproduce themselves semi-autonomously within eukaryotic cells. In cell biology, a mitochondrion is an organelle found in the cells of most eukaryotes. ... In cell biology, a mitochondrion is an organelle found in the cells of most eukaryotes. ... Schematic of typical animal cell, showing subcellular components. ... Kingdoms Animalia - Animals Fungi Plantae - Plants Protista A eukaryote (also spelled eucaryote) is an organism with complex cells, in which the genetic material is organized into membrane-bound nuclei. ...

The genetic material forming the mitochondrial genome is similar in structure to that of the prokaryotic genetic material. The mitochondrial chromosome is a circular DNA molecule, but unlike prokaryotes it is much smaller and several copies are present. This similarity supports the hypothesis that mitochondria arose from intracellular bacterial symbiotes, i.e the endosymbiotic theory. In biology the genome of an organism is the whole hereditary information of an organism that is encoded in the DNA (or, for some viruses, RNA). ... Prokaryotes (from Old Greek pro- before + karyon nut, referring to the cell nucleus, + suffix -otos, pl. ... For other uses, see DNA (disambiguation). ... The endosymbiotic theory concerns the origins of mitochondria and plastids (plastids with chlorophyll a and b are called chloroplasts, some other plastids are called cyanelles and rhodoplasts),which are organelles of eukaryotic cells. ...

The mitochondria of a sexually-reproducing species are inherited maternally. In this way, mitochondrial genetic diseases can affect both males and females, but can only be transmitted by females to their offspring. The human mitochonrial genome consists of 16,569 base pairs, which encodes only 13 proteins, 22 tRNAs, and 2 rRNAs. In cell biology, a mitochondrion is an organelle found in the cells of most eukaryotes. ...

Compared to the nuclear genome, the mitochondrial genome possesses some very interesting features: In biology the genome of an organism is the whole hereditary information of an organism that is encoded in the DNA (or, for some viruses, RNA). ...

• All the genes are carried on a single circular DNA molecule.
• The genetic material is not bounded by a nuclear envelope.
• The DNA is not packed with proteins.
• The genome doesn't contain a lot of non-coding areas (junk DNA, or "introns").
• Some codons do not follow the universal rules in translation. Instead they resemble those of purple nonsulfur bacteria.
• Some bases are considered as a part of two different genes: as the last base of a gene and the first base of the next gene.

See also

• mitochondrial DNA
• mitochondrial genetics

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA, or less popularly, mDNA) is DNA that is located in mitochondria. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

References

• San Mauro, Diego, David J. Gower, Rafael Zardoya and Mark Wilkinson (January 2006). "A hotspot of gene order rearrangement by tandem duplication and random loss in the vertebrate mitochondrial genome". Molecular Biology and Evolution 23: 227–234.
• Wolstenholme, D.R. 1992. Animal mitochondrial DNA: structure and evolution. Int. Rev. Cytol. 141: 173-216

External links

• Map of the human mitochondrial genome (Human Genome Project)
• Sequence data and related info (NCBI Organelle Genome Resources)
• Other mitochondrial info (Mitomap database)