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Mitochondria Are Alive

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Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#91

Post by dekhn »

georgeecollins wrote: post #25
ssalka wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine it's similar to how viruses are not considered to be alive, since they cannot reproduce without a host cell? But I have never been a fan of that argument either, both seem alive to me.

I think the idea here is that mitochondria developed independent of cells and later lived exclusively inside of them. In other words, they reproduced without cells. I am not sure, please correct me if I am wrong.

No, the predecessors of mitochondria were also cells and they reproduced through cellular division.

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#92

Post by JumpCrisscross »

outworlder wrote: post #86
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #78

Mitochondria are why I’m a Rare Earther. In Earth’s history, mitochondrial endosymbiosis occurred once. Without that you don’t have the energy budget for complex life. Moreover, there may be a narrow window where it can happen: modern microbiology has defences and selection pressures that it make inhospitable to the hobbling chimeræ the first mitochondrial cells would have been. Until mitochondria, the emergence of l…

Mitochondria seems to have been an 'accident', yes. That does not mean that other lifeforms in different planets require mitochondria or equivalent organelles. As long as they can perform the necessary chemical reactions (which could be different in a different environments) and extract enough energy, they should be good. How did mitochondria evolve in the first place? Could they have remained as independent organism…

> long as they can perform the necessary chemical reactions

That mitochondria are conserved as an independent organelle across almost [1] all eukaryotes, across billions of years of history, suggests this is something the nuclear can’t easily in house.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6343361/

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#93

Post by outworlder »

jamiek88 wrote: post #77
IAmNotACellist wrote: post #71

The fact that every child on the planet is religiously taught that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell is all the evidence I need that we're upholding a primordial contractual agreement and these are the conditions to which we are beholden. Name a single biological entity that has a better PR department. The only one that comes close is Athlete's Foot, which makes the victim sound cool.

Excellent point. Are there mitochondria in neurons?

Yes. Neurons are very energy hungry.

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#94

Post by WWWWH »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #78

Mitochondria are why I’m a Rare Earther. In Earth’s history, mitochondrial endosymbiosis occurred once. Without that you don’t have the energy budget for complex life. Moreover, there may be a narrow window where it can happen: modern microbiology has defences and selection pressures that it make inhospitable to the hobbling chimeræ the first mitochondrial cells would have been. Until mitochondria, the emergence of l…

I have a chloroplast for you on line two; can you hold?

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#95

Post by dekhn »

jamiek88 wrote: post #67
andrewla wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two halves of the divided cells will usually both have mitochondria. Not always, though; sometimes cell division leaves one cell without any mitochrondria. That usually results in a non-viable cell, but sometimes the cell can survive with limited capacity. Some species that used to have mitochondria have apparently been through this process and have evolved to survive in their absence; Giardia duodenalis for exam…

Oh wow! It never occurred to me that there are creatures without mitochondria.

https://www.science.org/content/article/first-eukaryotes-fou...

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#97

Post by casenmgreen »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #78

Mitochondria are why I’m a Rare Earther. In Earth’s history, mitochondrial endosymbiosis occurred once. Without that you don’t have the energy budget for complex life. Moreover, there may be a narrow window where it can happen: modern microbiology has defences and selection pressures that it make inhospitable to the hobbling chimeræ the first mitochondrial cells would have been. Until mitochondria, the emergence of l…

I may be wrong, but I recall reading recently it had been found the same event had occurred again, fairly recently (hundreds of thousands of years, could be millions) in some species of bacteria or something like that.

Here's a thought, also; maybe once this has happened, it tends to crowd out needing to happen again.

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#98

Post by piombisallow »

jamiek88 wrote: post #77
IAmNotACellist wrote: post #71

The fact that every child on the planet is religiously taught that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell is all the evidence I need that we're upholding a primordial contractual agreement and these are the conditions to which we are beholden. Name a single biological entity that has a better PR department. The only one that comes close is Athlete's Foot, which makes the victim sound cool.

Excellent point. Are there mitochondria in neurons?

Every cell in the body (except blood cells) has mithocondria.

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#99

Post by davideg »

davideg wrote: post #82
andrewla wrote: post #54

I read the article waiting for an answer to the question "in what operational sense does this matter?" but it never arrived. The question posed is whether we consider mitochondria to be "alive". It's just a word, who cares. What do we do differently given this assumption?

> Defining mitochondria as “nonliving” isn’t just a classification mistake, nor a question of word choice. Rather, it is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature and role of mitochondria. It inherently undermines our understanding of biological systems and deeply influences the tools we build to study them. Once you accept mitochondria as alive, you might be motivated to explore its "potential" niche, as describe…

I recognize that you might be motivated to explore removing and implanting mitochondria regardless of whether you consider it to be alive (as you might think about implanting an organ from another source).

I think the main point the author is making is to not fall prey to reductive thinking about mitochondria's potential and less about the question of "aliveness". We were all taught about mitochondria producing ATP, but it sounds like it serves many other functions and there's a lot more to explore about its potential in synthetic biology and therapeutics.

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#100

Post by outworlder »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #92
outworlder wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mitochondria seems to have been an 'accident', yes. That does not mean that other lifeforms in different planets require mitochondria or equivalent organelles. As long as they can perform the necessary chemical reactions (which could be different in a different environments) and extract enough energy, they should be good. How did mitochondria evolve in the first place? Could they have remained as independent organism…

> long as they can perform the necessary chemical reactions That mitochondria are conserved as an independent organelle across almost [1] all eukaryotes, across billions of years of history, suggests this is something the nuclear can’t easily in house. [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6343361/

Maybe!

That could also suggest that any other strategies were just out competed by this one and lost the opportunity to develop further.

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