Wednesday, March 7, 2012

What's the difference between these two kinds of DNA?

Mitochondrial DNA and nuclear DNA and in what instances it would be more beneficial than nuclear DNA and what is its limitations are.



Thanks for your answers.

If you don't feel like writing you can tell me a website where I can get all these information.

Thank you.What's the difference between these two kinds of DNA?
Mitochondrial DNA is inherited through the mother. Mitochondria are the organelles found within the cytoplasm of cells and their function is to produce ATP which is a chemical form of energy. The mother is the source of the egg and within the egg are all the components required for cell division once it is fertilised by sperm. This includes the mother's mitochondria which will be used to provide the energy to fuel the process of development. The sperm also has mitochondria to power its movement through the female reproductive tract but at the point of fertilisation only the male DNA enters the egg while the tail (containing the mitochondria) is excluded.



Nuclear DNA on the other hand is formed from the combination of the mother's nuclear DNA (found within the egg's nucleus) and the father's DNA (from the sperm). The male DNA enters the nucleus where it combines with the maternal DNA and the egg begins to divide.



Because mtDNA is passed down through the mother, and hasn't undergone the processes of recombination found with nuclear DNA, scientists can use these conserved (unchanged) sequences of mtDNA to trace the maternal pedigree or lineage millions of years into the past. This helps evolutionary scientists accurately identify an organisms place on the evolutionary tree.What's the difference between these two kinds of DNA?
mtDNA is inherited matrilineally (through the mother's line) only whereas nuclear DNA is the combination of both mother and father DNA. mtDNA also remains exactly the same as it is passed down generations and nuclear DNA is much larger in terms of base pairs and often engages in recombination which alters the overall genetic code.What's the difference between these two kinds of DNA?
Mitochondrial DNA is inherited directly through the maternal line. Nuclear DNA half composed of DNA from the sperm cell and half from DNA of the egg cell. All of the mitochondria however come from the egg cell and none come from the sperm cell so all the DNA is maternal.



Not sure about benefits/limitations. I would guess the limitations are that the mitochondrial DNA never undergoes sexual recombination so it lacks variety. The benefits might be that you don't need a mechanism for getting mitochondrial DNA from sperm. Since the mitochondria power the egg cell it is important that they are viable from the moment the gamete is formed, thus it does not have to wait to form the zygote to be operational.



Hope that helped.
Mitochondrial DNA is DNA unique from the nuclear DNA found in the nucleus.



Mitochondrial DA is often abbreviated mtDNA because it is of special kind. The reason why the mitochondria (the energy factory of a eukaryotic cell) has it's own DNA is because long ago prokaryotic cells without organelles induced phagocytosis and established an endosymbiotic relationship with a mitochondria like cell that eventually incorporated itself in the replication of the two organisms as a unit.



The mitochondrial DNA is very useful when trying to finding particular sexual disorders. It can do so because it is passed down maternally. Scientists can use these sequences of mtDNA to trace the maternal pedigree many years into the past and allows evolutionary scientists to accurately identify and place organisms on the evolutionary tree of life (kingdom-phylum-class-order-genus species).



Nuclear DNA, the somatic DNA of an individual (most complete genome) is most useful for practically everything else. It can be used to find if you are going to have alzeihmer's, schizophrenia, sterility, and many many other diseases. It is also used primarily for cloning and important for DNA analysis. The tandem DNA repeats in a particular persons genome can help identify him/her to a piece of evidence.



All DNA is very useful because it provides specific information that is very unique to the person in question. However, mtDNA or nuclear DNA helps because then you know it's origin and you can then conduct the procedure with more specificity.



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