Abstract

Trypanosomes are single celled eukaryotes that are only distantly related to the major model systems for mitochondrial biology, like yeast, mouse or human. Different from these model systems trypanosome cells contain only one mitochondrial organelle with a singular genome (mt-genome). Replication and segregation of the mt-genome is tightly integrated into the cell cycle and a large number of proteins are involved in these two processes. In recent years we and others used a combination of biochemical and super resolution microscopy approaches to characterized the molecular components involved in proper segregation. We have now a model that describes the assembly of the segregation machinery that spans the cytoplasm, the two mitochondrial membranes as well as the mitochondrial matrix. The presentation will also aim to compare the current status in trypanosomes to the other major model systems.