Vaidhehi Narayan Nayak, Adarsh Honnappa, Pariksha Shrestha, Nishanthi Lakshmanan
BACKGROUND Mitochondrion, the sausage-shaped organelle residing in the cytoplasm of all eukaryotic cells, apart from being the power house, represents endosymbiotic evolution of a free living organism to intracellular structure. Anthropologically, mitochondrial DNA is the fossilised source to trace the human ancestry particularly of maternal lineage. This article attempts to highlight the various biological functions of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) with a note on its forensic application.
