Geospiza, Inc. Introduction to Organelles


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Mitochondria and Chloroplasts

Mitochondria and chloroplasts are the only organelles in eucaryotic cells that contain their own genomes and can synthesize their own proteins. This makes it possible to answer some questions about these organelles with bioinformatics tools. Most of the examples below refer to mitochondria, but the many of the same research techniques can also be used to answer questions about chloroplasts.

Some examples –

What do mitochondria (or chloroplasts) do?
Do mitochondrial genes use the same genetic code as nuclear genes?
Does splicing occur in mitochondria?
Which kinds of mitochondria use RNA editing?
What is the effect of mitochondrial mutations?
What is the origin of mitochondria and/or chloroplasts?
Are mitochondria similar in plants, animals, and other species?
Do all mitochondrial sequences show the same mutation rate?
Can we identify the maternal origin of a mitochondrial sequence?
How different are the mitochondrial genomes of apes and humans?
Did humans evolve from Homo neanderthal?

Programs and databases

National Center of Biotechnology Information (NCBI)
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG pathways)
BioCarta

More information about mitochondria and chloroplasts

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Copyright Geospiza, Inc.

Funding for this project was provided by the National Science Foundation's Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement Program under grants DUE-0088153 and DUE-0127599