How to Use mitochondrion in a Sentence

mitochondrion

noun
  • This is not the first time researchers have found creatures that have ditched their mitochondria.
    — Veronique Greenwood, New York Times, 28 Feb. 2020
  • When mitochondria fail, cells can be injured or die, causing organ systems to shut down.
    — Danica Kirka, The Seattle Times, 10 July 2017
  • Altmann might have been wrong to think that mitochondria were independent life forms.
    — Carl Zimmer, STAT, 30 May 2018
  • The donor, who does not have mitochondrial disease, will pass on her healthy mitochondria.
    — Madhumita Murgia, Newsweek, 28 Dec. 2016
  • The number of mitochondria in their cells increased, which improved the cells’ energy output.
    — Bruce Sterling, WIRED, 20 Aug. 2007
  • The proportion of diseased mitochondria to healthy ones causes the diseases to vary in severity.
    — Bradley J. Fikes, sandiegouniontribune.com, 29 Apr. 2017
  • Small animals, such as mice, have more active mitochondria in their bodies, working at a faster pace to produce energy and heat.
    — Sophie Weiner, Popular Mechanics, 23 Dec. 2017
  • In many species, including humans, mitochondria have their own DNA.
    — Ben Guarino, Washington Post, 19 Jan. 2018
  • Cells are filled with mitochondria, little engines that fuel cell activity.
    — Sophie Weiner, Popular Mechanics, 23 Dec. 2017
  • Our mitochondria are like little bots converting fuel for exercise.
    — Marc Peruzzi, Outside Online, 17 Apr. 2018
  • Compared to sugar, fat is burned more efficiently by the energy-producing component of the cell known as the mitochondria.
    — Dorothy Kieffer, sacbee.com, 29 May 2017
  • After elongating in response to the nutrient deficiency, the mitochondria lose their cristae (the little folds on their inside) and ball up.
    — Jeffery Delviscio, Scientific American, 16 Aug. 2019
  • For decades, researchers have known that mitochondria are derived from bacteria that became internal symbionts of archaeal cells, but details of how that happened have been sketchy.
    — Quanta Magazine, 9 Apr. 2019
  • Since mitochondria are passed on exclusively from mother to child, her daughters had inherited her mutation.
    — Madhumita Murgia, Newsweek, 28 Dec. 2016
  • But the sperm’s mitochondria don’t enter the egg, so the new baby cell only gets the mom’s mitochondrial DNA.
    — Radhika Viswanathan, Vox, 24 July 2018
  • Both the nucleus and the mitochondrion reflect a remarkable merger that took place early in eukaryotic life.
    — Quanta Magazine, 29 Oct. 2015
  • But the researchers think that the absence of a functioning mitochondrion might be linked to the peculiar environment where the parasite lives — fish muscle.
    — Veronique Greenwood, New York Times, 28 Feb. 2020
  • This is the first eukaryote — organisms, like plants and animals, whose cells contain distinct nuclei — found without the machinery of mitochondria.
    — Paul Smaglik, Discover Magazine, 15 Dec. 2016
  • Children inherit mitochondria only from their mothers; replacing faulty mitochondria in an egg or embryo with normal ones from a donor can result in healthy babies.
    — Sandy Ong, Science | AAAS, 6 June 2018
  • In L’Engle’s world, even something as microscopic as a mitochondrion can have cosmic significance, and a child can save the universe.
    — Ruth Franklin, The New York Review of Books, 25 Feb. 2020
  • Whether the sperm cell will reach and penetrate the egg depends upon its own supply of ATP, generated in those mitochondria so thickly clustered in the neck of the cell.
    — Rachel Carson, The New Yorker, 30 June 1962
  • Quite literally, each mitochondrion becomes a battery, waiting to discharge.
    — James Somers, The New Yorker, 25 Oct. 2022
  • The study propelled Chandel, then at the University of Chicago, and his colleagues to examine whether mitochondria could release other signals as well.
    — Quanta Magazine, 18 Mar. 2019
  • The energy factory in animal cells like our own is the mitochondrion, a repository for channeling energy from glucose harvested from food into electrons.
    — Zeeya Merali, Discover Magazine, 28 Dec. 2014
  • This sort of activity is supported by a different means of ATP production -- one that does not heavily rely on mitochondria or require oxygen.
    — Joshua Selsby, CNN, 27 Nov. 2019
  • The cell assembles the protein complexes that help mitochondria produce ATP with building blocks from both mitochondrial and nuclear genes.
    — Quanta Magazine, 27 Sep. 2017
  • Most human genes are on chromosomes, but a tiny number are in mitochondria, little power factories in human cells that for reasons of evolutionary history have their own loops of DNA.
    — Sarah Zhang, The Atlantic, 19 Sep. 2017
  • The mitochondria are the remains of what were once free-living bacteria, incorporated inside the cell and adapted for the production of the chemical energy source ATP.
    — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 26 Feb. 2020
  • During some of the heated sessions, medical doctors and anti-aging researchers argued loudly across the conference room about biomarkers, enzymes, telomerase endings of genes, and how far mitochondria might be manipulated.
    — Zoltan Istvan, Quartz, 29 July 2019
  • For decades, detectives used DNA from Y chromosomes and mitochondria to identify potential perpetrators, but both methods had limitations.
    — Allysia Finley, WSJ, 15 Feb. 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mitochondrion.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: