Originally posted by FabianFnas
So basically, they remove bad mitochondria and introduce good mitochondria in a fertilised egg.
Meaning that DNA comes from two parents only, not a third parent. Mitochondria doesn't introduce DNA from a third person. Right or wrong?
I think the title of the article isn't written of someone who had understood the text.
The mitochondria have their own DNA.
Basically modern eukaryote cells [which all complex non-bacterial life is built from]
formed when a big bacteria swallowed a small bacteria, and the small bacteria
started making energy for the big bacteria and started dividing with the big bacteria.
I suspect this was the 'single common ancestor' moment. The evidence we have at the
moment is suggesting that it's so easy for bacterial life to get started that it probable
started multiple times in multiple places.
But the creation of eukaryote cells happened just once, and all complex life stems from
that one single life form.
The advantage being that you need regulatory DNA to manage the power generation on
the bacterial cell wall. DNA takes power to build and maintain. And so you have a red queen
race where increasing DNA length [allowing for greater complexity] takes more energy,
and to regulate the energy generation process takes up almost all the new DNA length.
You get longer DNA that is basically made up of hundreds or thousands of copies of the
energy regulation bits.
In an eukaryote cell the mitochondria do all the energy generation, and if you need more
energy you just have more of them. Freeing up the host cell to use the energy to have a long
and complex DNA that allows for complex life.
Modern mitochondria are incredibly efficient energy generators with their DNA almost exclusively
devoted to energy generation regulation. They are however still lifeforms in their own right.
Bound in a symbiotic relationship with their host cells.
And what this procedure does is 'simply' replace faulty versions with healthy ones. With the
new mitochondria, with their Mitochondrial DNA coming from the third party.