Mitochondrial movement and inheritance in budding yeast

Mitochondria are essential organelles that perform fundamental cellular functions including aerobic energy mobilization, fatty acid oxidation, amino acid metabolism, heme biosynthesis and apoptosis. Mitochondria cannot be synthesized de novo. Therefore, the inheritance of this organelle is an essential part of the cell cycle; that is, daughter cells that do not inherit mitochondria will not survive. The budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is a facultative aerobe that can tolerate mitochondrial mutations that would be lethal in other organisms. Therefore, yeast has been used extensively to study inheritance and segregation of mitochondria. As a result, much of what we know regarding mitochondrial inheritance has been uncovered using yeast as a model system. Here, we describe the latest developments in mitochondrial motility and inheritance.