Unusual Patterns of Mitochondrial Inheritance in the Brown Alga Ectocarpus.

Most eukaryotes inherit their mitochondria from only one of their parents. When there are different sexes, it is almost always the maternal mitochondria that are transmitted. Indeed, maternal uniparental inheritance has been reported for the brown alga Ectocarpus but we show in this study that different strains of Ectocarpus can exhibit different patterns of inheritance: Ectocarpus siliculosus strains showed maternal uniparental inheritance, as expected, but crosses using different Ectocarpus species 7 strains exhibited either paternal uniparental inheritance or an unusual pattern of transmission where progeny inherited either maternal or paternal mitochondria, but not both.

Control in dormancy or eradication of cancer stem cells: Mathematical modeling and stability issues.

Objective: Modeling and analysis of cell population dynamics enhance our understanding of cancer. Here we introduce and explore a new model that may apply to many tissues.

Analyses: An age-structured model describing coexistence between mutated and ordinary stem cells is developed and explored.