| dc.description.abstract | The mitochondrion goes beyond just the “powerhouse of the cell”. As incredibly important as this organelle is, there is still much about its biology that remains unclear. Mitochondrial variation, historically, has often been treated as a neutral player in the game of evolution, but a growing amount of evidence has made it apparent that mitochondria have played a very active role in eukaryotic evolution. Questions on the mitochondria’s role in topics, such as speciation, adaptation, and disease, are more frequently being investigated. The high mutability of most animal mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) allows for heteroplasmies to arise and cause mito-nuclear conflict. This genomic conflict has been known to lead to various problems. One such problem is the prevalence of selfish mitochondria that lead to disease. Mitochondrial disease is quite common in humans, so there is particular interest in studying the dynamics of selfish mitochondria. Another issue that can arise is sexual antagonism due to mitochondrial mutations. Due to the maternal inheritance pattern (generally) of mitochondria, it is theorized that males will experience worse fitness costs compared to females. This pattern does exist in various plants and animals, however much of how this phenomenon works is unknown. Typically, animal studies dedicated to the study of sexual antagonism in the context of mitochondrial mutations are conducted in dioecious species, leaving a lack of understanding how this concept might work in hermaphroditic systems. Here we present another selfish mitotype found in C. elegans and explore potential sex-specific consequences of the mutant mitochondria. | |
