In my search for an article, I stumbled upon a study done by
researchers at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and
Atmospheric Science. Their article is titled, Evolved genetic and
phenotypic differences due to mitochondrial-nuclear interactions. These researchers
conducted a study to determine the effect of Mitochondrial and Nuclear genomes
interactions in the Atlantic killifish, and its adaptability to differing water
temperatures, which is dependent on metabolic rate. I wasn’t familiar with
Mitochondrial genomes, as I assumed that all of the genetic code is found in
the nucleus. But I was intrigued.
Come to find out, the
Mitochondria does actually contain a very small number of genomes. I
was interested in this new information, though I didn’t fully understand what
the rest of the study consisted of. However, I was happy to find two words that
I was familiar with. “Oxidative Phosphorylation.”
Oxidative Phosphorylation
is the process in which ATP is synthesized due to the process of transporting
of electrons on the Electron Transport Chain which is found in the inner
membrane of Mitochondria. These electrons are passed through different protein complexes
on the chain, and the end result of this process occurs when hydrogen ions
(protons) are able to be pumped through the last complex, named ATP Synthase.
Note that these five complexes, are made up of “approximately
89 proteins encoded by the two genomes in animal cells: all 13 mitochondrial
proteins and 76 nuclear proteins” (Baris et al., 2017). So to
explain, these complexes that allow for Oxidative Phosphorylation to occur are
made up of mitochondrial and nuclear proteins.
These researchers looked
at the different Mitochondrial-nuclear interactions in the Atlantic killifish,
and how these interactions affected the overall form of an allele that is
formed due to the interactions. Through looking at over 11,000 nuclear DNA
sequences, there were “significant differences in nuclear allele frequencies” (Baris
et al., 2017) This caused the researchers to believe that the different
frequencies cause a difference in metabolic processes, which affects the
Atlantic killifish's adaptability to temperature change. These results from
this study support the idea that metabolic processes depend on the interaction
of Mitochondrial and Nuclear proteins in the Mitochondria.
-E Dunn
-E Dunn
Baris, T. Z., Wagner, D. N., Dayan, D. I., Du, X., Blier, P. U.,
Pichaud, N., Oleksiak, M. F., Crawford, D. L. (2017) Evolved genetic
and phenotypic differences due to mitochondrial-nuclear interactions, PLOS,
Vol. 13, Issue 3, 1-23
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