Mitochondria are found in?

Mitochondria are amazing and cool. They are found in plants... animals,....fungi,.....protists, and any other eukaryotic cell.

They can quickly change shape and move around the cell when needed.

When the cell needs more energy, the mitochondria can reproduce by growing larger and then dividing. For example, say you want to get in shape. As you exercise more the mitochondria in your muscles will increase in number and navigate to the edges of the cell, which allows these muscle cells to have more energy. If the cell needs less energy, some mitochondria will die or become inactive.

Mitochondria are very similar to some bacteria. For this reason, some scientists think that they originally were bacteria that were absorbed by more complex cells. This theory is called endosymbiosis.

 During cellular respiration with the help of oxygen, the mitochondria produce 25 ATP Compare this to only 3 ATP produced during glycolysis in the cytoplasm. Thus the title “ The powerhouse of the cell.”

So why is this a big deal?

In order to do something like running which requires a large amount of energy,

ATP is required, but how does this ATP help?

To carry out life processes, ATP is continuously broken down into ADP, like a rechargeable battery, and releases a huge amount of energy which is used by the cell in several metabolic processes as well as in building macromolecules such as proteins.

ATP is critical for the contraction of muscles. ATP supplies the energy to move the contractile muscle proteins.

ATP is essential for certain pumps like the sodium-potassium pumps and calcium pumps. The sodium-potassium pump ensures that our cells have the correct amount of sodium and potassium which is essential to stay alive

 The adenosine from ATP is a building block of RNA and is directly added to RNA molecules. During Transcription DNA is copied to mRNA, which carries the information needed to make proteins 

So next time you may do anything requiring energy like mountain biking,

You can thank the amazing and cool mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell.

Related Links

Cell City

Lysosomes

Ribosomes

The Cytoplasm

Nucleus Facts

MooMooMath and Science YouTube

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