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Why do chloroplasts and mitochondria contain so many copies of their genome?
Author(s) -
Bendich Arnold J.
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
bioessays
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.175
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1521-1878
pISSN - 0265-9247
DOI - 10.1002/bies.950060608
Subject(s) - genome , biology , ribosome , organelle , gene , genetics , chloroplast , ribosomal rna , mitochondrion , mitochondrial dna , rna , computational biology
The very high genome copy number in cytoplasmic organelles is a puzzling fact in cell biology. It is proposed here that high copy number reflects an increased need for organellar ribosomes that can only be satisfied by the increased ribosomal RNA gene number that results from genome multiplication.