First, mtDNA codes for”or produces”very few things in our body; save for an occasional protein, mtDNA is completely useless3
This is just stupid. Without mtDNA you wouldn't have any functional mitochondria and you wouldn't be alive. You wouldn't just be ill or have a severe developmental defect you would never have got beyond being a one celled zygote.
This just seems as if you have no idea what mitochondria are.
Without mixture from the father, the only variations arising in mtDNA are natural mutations resulting from copying mistakes during conception.
This isn't right, there is no particular significance to conception. It would be more correct to say mtDNA only accrues mutations arising in the maternal germ line. It might also be a good idea to say why this is and why mtDNA is actually unique, i.e. it is seperate from the nuclear genome and contained in multiple copies in the mitochondria of the cell.
It is also thought that there are some rare cases of contribution of paternal mtDNA, which might be at least as big if not a bigger problem for estimates based on an assumption of solely maternal pattern of inheritance than your variations in population density would be.
Because mtDNA doesn't code for many things, these mutations continue to be passed on, i.e., people don't die from the mutations, and so live to pass them on.
Again this is wildly wrong. I think what you may need to do is specify that this analysis focuses on a particular stretch of mtDNA called the
Control region which
doesn't code for any proteins and where mutations
are usually considered to be neutral but what is true for the control region is certainly not true for all of the mtDNA. I don't know if this research was based on the control region, but that is the only way I can see any of your statements actually being anything other than plain wrong.
Just a few preliminary thoughts.
TTFN,
WK
Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.
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