Re: mitochondrial DNA

["Judith Rosen" <***>]

Off and on over the years, I've done a bit of research into mitochondrial
DNA, because I was fascinated with the notion that not all of our "genetic
blueprint" is contained in the nuclear DNA. I also found it interesting that
all mitochondrial DNA is inherited through the mother (because the egg cell
is large enough to contain mitochondria but the sperm cell is not). This
doesn't get talked about very much, and I don't understand why that is. It
seems to me that if certain inherited human metabolic diseases are being
studied, for example, then they ought to be looking into mitochondrial
DNA... but it has never gotten a single mention in any of the studies I've
seen.

With regards to Jeff's experiment idea, I think the mitochondria must play a
large role in the genetic make up of any offspring resulting from an egg
where the mitochondria are not from the same mother as the nucleus. Does
anyone know of studies where this aspect of cloning is discussed? It seems
to me that the premature aging that we've seen in cloned animals may be due
to a mismatch in genetic proteins within cells or some other side-effect
from this situation.

Judith

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Pridaux" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2003 1:37 PM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] SciAm Dec. 2003 - DNA, Epigenetics, and Complexity


> The following experiment might be interesting:
>
> As I understand it, for animals cloned so far, the DNA from a viable egg
> cell is replaced with DNA from another cell (from the same animal) in such
> a way to "trick" the egg to think it was fertilized.  It may be that the
> whole nucleus is swapped out of the egg.  Then the animal (or a like
> animal) carries the fertilized egg to term resulting in a clone of the
> animal (who donated the DNA)
>
> An interesting alternative would be to have the donor egg and the
replacing
> DNA being from different animals.  And somehow just swap out the DNA
> without swapping out the surrounding chemicals around the DNA in the
> nucleus.  If that were possible and if an animal resulted that wasn't
> exactly the same as the DNA donor, then that would demonstrate that the
DNA
> isn't EVERYTHING.
>
> I suspect, though, that this experiment may be very difficult (or maybe
> impossible) to perform.
>
>
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