A small protein coded within the mitochondrial canonical gene nd4 regulates mitochondrial bioenergetics.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Mitochondria have a central role in cellular functions, aging, and in certain diseases. They possess their own genome, a vestige of their bacterial ancestor. Over the course of evolution, most of the genes of the ancestor have been lost or transferred to the nucleus. In humans, the mtDNA is a very small circular molecule with a functional repertoire limited to only 37 genes. Its extremely compact nature with genes arranged one after the other and separated by short non-coding regions suggests that there is little room for evolutionary novelties. This is radically different from bacterial genomes, which are also circular but much larger, and in which we can find genes inside other genes. These sequences, different from the reference coding sequences, are called alternativ

SUBMITTER: Kienzle L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10193809 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature