The major question in control of cytoplaslmic inheritance is the removal of organelles from some gamete.

• Gametogenesis: organelles may be segregated from the gamete during premeiotic or meiotic divisions; organelles or organell DNA may be degraded in the gamete.
  • Organelles segregated from gamete during meiotic or premeiotic divisions Chamaecypris
  • Destruction of organelles - Mimulus
• Fertilization: organelle DNA is shed from gamets before fertilization,l or does not enter the egg.
  • Probably occurs in human sperm.
• Postfertilization; selective silencing (degradation) of organelles or organelle dNA in the zygote, stochastic or diredcted segregation of organelles into extraembryonic tissues during early cleavages, or loss of alleles from one parent due to stochastic replication and/or turnover of organell genomes.

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Text iGenetics by Peter J. Russell

This web site is provided for instruction in Botany and Zoology 342

by Kenneth G. Wilson,
Professor of Botany
Miami University
wilsonkg@muohio.edu