What I meant was that the mitrochondria’s DNA won’t have any real effect on the child, since its essentially a separate creature. Under normal circumstances mitochondria will just process energy for the cell without making any difference.
It’s more like replacing a faulty set of batteries than changing the wiring, as it were.
And also this means that it’s possible to breed Force sensitivity into someone’s family line.
rereads
Oh, mitochondria. My bad. :smack:
That is simply wrong. Just plain wrong. As has been pointed out to you, one of the motivations for doing this in the first place is to cure diseases that are caused by bad mitochondrial genes. In other words, if your mitochondrial DNA gets screwed up, it can make you very very sick. That is what I would call “having a real effect on the child”.
And as I pointed out, that isn’t what I was saying; while it certainly makes a difference (that being the whole point of the exercise), I was arguing that mitochondrial DNA doesn’t really “count” (and therefore the donor can’t truly be considered a genetic parent of the child), since the mitochondria are separate creatures in a symbiotic relationship with the person’s cell. Under normal circumstances that’s what they do and when their genes are faulty it’s a problem with the mitochondria; the person in question’s own genes are perfectly fine.
My point was that because the mitochondria are separate, they’re basically interchangeable. Ergo the point of the part of my post you trimmed out for some reason; faulty mitochondria are more like dead batteries. As long as the new ones work, their DNA is irrelevant, (outside what’ll most likely be a plot point for a few crime dramas).
You are claiming that my mitochondria are somehow different creatures from me. They aren’t. They may be derived from some things that were once free-living, but that independence was lost a billion or so years ago, so that distinction is a bit obsolete. They are most certainly NOT “separate creatures in a symbiotic relationship with [my] cell.” They are organelles. They are part of my cells. They cannot “survive” - if you can really call what they do “surviving” - outside of my cells. They rely on lots of gene products coded for by my nuclear DNA. They replicate in a way that’s slightly different from other organelles, and retain a few other interesting quirks from their unusual past, but they are not separate from me.
I know that was your point; your point is wrong.
One one level, it’s a semantic argument about the definition of “me” and “separate” and stuff like that, but really, the case for my mitochondria somehow being different from me is very weak.
I think what would make it controversial is if it turned out that mitochondria had some identifiable influence on individual characteristics whether physical, psychological, etc. I tried to do a quick search and nothing popped up so as far as I can tell and as far as the state of the art seems to be at present, their influence seems to be fairly narrow.
But then again, maybe not. Having mitochondria that are more efficient at ATP production might give a cell a whole host of advantages that a cell with less efficient mitochondria might not have. So even if their function does turn out to be so exquisitely proscribed, which honestly seems unlikely given what we know about molecular biology, this alone could be hugely important.
So what are we going to call the third parent? Mito-mom?