Uniparental inheritance
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Uniparental inheritance is a non-Mendelian form of inheritance that consists of the transmission of genotypes from one parental type to all progeny. That is, all the genes in offspring will originate from only the mother or only the father. This phenomenon is most commonly observed in eukaryotic organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplasts. This is because such organelles contain their own DNA and are capable of independent mitotic replication that does not endure crossing over with the DNA from another parental type. Although uniparental inheritance is the most common form of inheritance in organelles, there is increased evidence of diversity. Some studies found doubly uniparental inheritance (DUI) and biparental transmission to exist in cells. Evidence suggests that even when there is biparental inheritance, crossing-over doesn't always occur. Furthermore, there is evidence that the form of organelle inheritance varied frequently over time. Uniparental inheritance can be divided into multiple subtypes based on the pathway of inheritance.[1][2]
Organelles
Although most of the eukaryotic sub-cellular parts do not have their own DNA nor are capable of replication independent of the nucleus, there are some exceptions such as mitochondria and chloroplasts. Not only are these organelles capable of independent DNA replication, translation, and transcription, they are commonly known to inherit genes from only one parental type. In the case of mitochondria, maternal inheritance is almost the exclusive form of inheritance. Although, during egg cell fertilization, mitochondria are brought into the fertilized cell both by the egg cell and the sperm, the paternal mitochondria are usually marked with ubiquitin and are later destroyed.[3] Even if they are not destroyed, the DNA's of different mitochondria rarely genetically recombine with one another. Thus, mitochondria in most animals are inherited from the maternal type only.
