i dont see why this is new or a huge shock. its really as obvious as apple pie contains apples, however once a superstar makes a pronouncement and others agree it is very difficult for anyone to accept that the paradigm is a grainy one that requires focus.
spermatozoa are loaded with moby quantities of mitochondria and some do make it into the oocytic cytoplasm in a functional state. thus there is a paternal contribution to the genetic component of zygogenesis.
the new part has not yet been explored, and that would be what level of silencing occurs due to maternal cytoplasmic factors interacting with the paternal Mitochondriome.
Personally I didn't know previously that a sperm contained mitochondria. (I'd thought it not to be proper cell whereas the ovum was). Discussions on heredity at the level I'd be at always said that mitochondrial DNA would reveal the female line in the way the y chromosome does the male one. So it was surprising news to me anyway.
spermatozoa are like a bargeload of magnetic tape.
the dna is packed up in an acrosome that serves to [in humans] ,
eject the paternal contribution into the egg.
--this is pushed around by a flagellating tail that is powered by numerous mitochondria, most of them burnout, any that make it to eggplasm are challenged in other ways.
3 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 14.2 ms ] thread