Читать книгу Algorithms in Bioinformatics - Paul A. Gagniuc - Страница 69

Mitochondria are the most investigated organelle (Figure 1.2a–c). Mitochondria arose about 2.3–1.6 billion years ago from an α-proteobacterial endosymbiont [204, 205]. Energy production is the main function of this organelle. Potential energy is created by oxidation of glucose and the release of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). ATP is generated by the mitochondrial ATP synthase from adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and phosphate ions (P_i). In turn, ATP hydrolysis leads to ADP and energy release (ATP + H₂O ⇄ ADP + P_i), which drives all the fundamental cell functions in most eukaryotes. To put things in perspective, the human body uses an average of 50 kg of ATP per day [206]. Depending on the species and type of tissue, mitochondria ranges from hundreds to thousands of copies per cell [207]. Mitochondria contain their own genome [208]. The average length of the mitochondrial genome is 31 kb (Table 2.3).