Presence of male mitochondria in somatic tissues and their functional 
importance at the whole animal level in the marine bivalve Arctica islandica

Dégletagne, Cyril; Abele, Doris; Glöckner, Gernot; Alric, Benjamin; Gruber, Heike; Held, Christoph

doi:10.1038/s42003-021-02593-1

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Presence of male mitochondria in somatic tissues and their functional importance at the whole animal level in the marine bivalve Arctica islandica

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Gruber, Heike
Research Group Microbial Evolutionary Dynamics (Gallie), Department Theoretical Biology (Traulsen), Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;

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Citation

Dégletagne, C., Abele, D., Glöckner, G., Alric, B., Gruber, H., & Held, C. (2021). Presence of male mitochondria in somatic tissues and their functional importance at the whole animal level in the marine bivalve Arctica islandica. Communications Biology, 4: 1104. doi:10.1038/s42003-021-02593-1.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0009-4817-D

Abstract

Metazoans normally possess a single lineage of mitochondria inherited from the mother (♀-type mitochondria) while paternal mitochondria are absent or eliminated in fertilized eggs. In doubly uniparental inheritance (DUI), which is specific to the bivalve clade including the ocean quahog, Arctica islandica, ♂-type mitochondria are retained in male gonads and, in a few species, small proportions of ♂-type mitochondria co-exist with ♀-type in somatic tissues. To the best of our knowledge, we report, for the first time in metazoan, the natural occurrence of male and female individuals with exclusively ♂-type mitochondria in somatic tissues of the bivalve A. islandica. Mitochondrial genomes differ by ~5.5% at DNA sequence level. Exclusive presence of ♂-type mitochondria affects mitochondrial complexes partially encoded by mitochondrial genes and leads to a sharp drop in respiratory capacity. Through a combination of whole mitochondrial genome sequencing and molecular assays (gene presence and expression), we demonstrate that 1) 11% of individuals of an Icelandic population appear homoplasmic for ♂-type mitochondria in somatic tissues, 2) ♂-type mitochondrial genes are transcribed and 3) individuals with ♂-type mitochondria in somatic cells lose 30% of their wild-type respiratory capacity. This mitochondrial pattern in A. islandica is a special case of DUI, highlighted in individuals from both sexes with functional consequences at cellular and conceivably whole animal level.