mitochondrial DNA

[anjaliz]

Why experiments are running on mitochondrial DNA,
is there have any effect of this DNA in human body?

[jonmoulton]

Yes, there is an effect of having mitochondrial DNA in your body. You survive. Without that mitochondrial chromosome the mitochondria cannot replace critical proteins within those organelles and will not continue to function. Without functional mitochondria you cannot run the Krebs cycle. You won't make it for long on fermentation alone.

As for experiments involving mitochondrial DNA, you might start here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?ter ... chromosome

[plasmodesmata11]

It's also passed down maternally, so it has many uses in that aspect

[jonmoulton]

Here's recent news on that topic.

http://www.economist.com/news/science-a ... ult-people

Here's the citation and link to the original paper:

Towards germline gene therapy of inherited mitochondrial diseases.

Tachibana M, Amato P, Sparman M, Woodward J, Sanchis DM, Ma H, Gutierrez NM, Tippner-Hedges R, Kang E, Lee HS, Ramsey C, Masterson K, Battaglia D, Lee D, Wu D, Jensen J, Patton P, Gokhale S, Stouffer R, Mitalipov S.

Nature. 2012 Oct 24. doi: 10.1038/nature11647. [Epub ahead of print]

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/va ... 11647.html