thenaterator

thenaterator t1_ir9tcru wrote

Reply to comment by HollandJim in Mitochondrial DNA Is Working Its Way Into the Human Genome by molrose96

Scientist here. As usual the press release (at least the headline) is misleading, and invokes a lot in the imagination of readers.

You have 2 places where DNA are stored, and they are for all practical purposes, completely different. (1) In the nucleus of all of your cells. This is, in a sense, YOUR DNA. It encodes all the stuff that makes you. (2) In the mitochondria of all of your cells (often called "the powerhouse of the cell). It encodes all the stuff the mitochondria needs to generate "power."

All organisms we call "Eukaryotes" have these 2 stores. That's because (we think), Eukaryotes came into being when two different types of organisms fused together into one symbiotic organism. Hence the 2 different stores of DNA. Each store is descended from those ancestral organisms.

We already know that DNA can be transferred from the mitochondria to the nuclear store. In principle it's similar to how DNA can be shared across species (called "Horizontal Gene Transfer").

This paper? It describes these DNA transfer events in 66,083 human genomes, and speculates on the downstream effects of those transfers.

It isn't something just happening to humans.

63