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From: toms@ncifcrf.gov (Tom Schneider)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Organelle Reproduction
Summary: Maybe...
Message-ID: <1792@fcs280s.ncifcrf.gov>
Date: 17 Jul 90 01:11:56 GMT
References: <5180001@hpcuhb.HP.COM> <5115@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: NCI Supercomputer Facility, Frederick, MD
Lines: 23

In article <5115@castle.ed.ac.uk> eoph12@castle.ed.ac.uk (I F Gow) writes:
>Organelles reproduce in the same way as their ancestral microbes did,
>i.e. by binary fission.   This can be seen on some micrographs as the
>organelles appearing like "dumb-bell" structures as they are caught
>dividing.
>
>IFG

Unfortunately this is not a good proof.  Mitochondria in serial sections turn
out to be all interconnected.  It's as if they were one long (perhaps
branching) tube.  when a slice is made through them, one gets circles and
elipses mostly.  But a 'dum-bell' is also possible.  Consider sections through
a banana and you will find these shapes.  On the other hand, it does seem
reasonable that they would reproduce by fission since they have their own DNA,
and this DOES replicate.  Since they have an enclosed membrane, it seems that
the membrane must also fission.  That inference is, of course, not the same as
experimental data!  Does anyone know more about how they do replicate?

  Tom Schneider
  National Cancer Institute
  Laboratory of Mathematical Biology
  Frederick, Maryland  21702-1201
  toms@ncifcrf.gov