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Biparental inheritance of mitochondrial DNA revisited

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Evidence for a biparental mode of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) inheritance has been sparse and remains controversial. Recent studies using a range of complementary techniques do not support paternal transmission of mtDNA and highlight the co-amplification of rare, concatenated nuclear mtDNA segments as a technical artefact that may explain previous observations.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge funding from the Wellcome Trust (203141/Z/16/Z and 212219/Z/18/Z), the Medical Research Council Mitochondrial Biology Unit (MC_UU_00015/9) and the NIHR Biomedical Research Centres at Cambridge, Oxford and Great Ormond Street.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics and the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Alistair T. Pagnamenta

  2. Department of Clinical Neurosciences and the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Cambridge, UK

    Wei Wei & Patrick F. Chinnery

  3. UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, London, UK

    Shamima Rahman

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  1. Alistair T. Pagnamenta
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  2. Wei Wei
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  3. Shamima Rahman
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  4. Patrick F. Chinnery
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Correspondence to Patrick F. Chinnery.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Pagnamenta, A.T., Wei, W., Rahman, S. et al. Biparental inheritance of mitochondrial DNA revisited. Nat Rev Genet 22, 477–478 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-021-00380-6

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