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John D. Loike, a Professor of Biology at Touro College and University Systems, writes a regular column on bioethics for The Scientist.
Until last month, it was generally believed that mitochondria and their DNA are exclusively maternally inherited in humans. In a provocative report in PNAS, scientists identified 17 people from three unrelated families with a high level of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) inherited from both mothers and male ancestors. Now, it’s time to rethink the dogma of mitochondrial inheritance.
Earlier human studies using human polyploid embryos generated by IVF only detected paternal mtDNA up until the eight-cell stage of development. There was, however, one report in 2002 of a single male with mitochondrial myopathy, a condition affecting muscles, who expressed both maternal and paternal mtDNA. This observation is surprising to see in humans, even though many species (including algae, plants, yeast, and Drosophila) exhibit strict paternal ...
