BIOL 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Mitochondrial Fusion, Dnm1L, Mitochondrial Disease
Document Summary
11:36 am mtdna is circular like plasmids in prokaryotes. Recall that mitochondrial mutations could change one"s lifespan --> may suggest that one"s lifespan was predetermined by mitochondrial genome. 1/5000 live births would have some sort of defect due to mitochondrial mutations. A mitochondrial disease would only affect one tissue. This is interesting since mitochondria is in every cell, yet a mutation would only cause tissue-specific defects -- this is due to: mitochondrial morphology varies in different tissues. Genes expressed in mitochondria in different tissues would be different; proteins made by mitochondria vary in diff. tissues, made according to tissue-specific demands. Mitochondria form an interconnected tubulin network: all the mitochondria seem connected to each other. Mitochondria undergo fission and fusion (recall videoclip with the two strings fusing together), during interphase. Outer membranes need to fuse first: mfn1/2 & mfn1/2 need to come together and flip, causing fusion of outer membranes.
