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Cited by 295

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 3 of the 3 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Misconceptions about mitochondria and mammalian fertilization: Implications for theories on human evolution

Open access
Ankel-Simons, Friderun, Cummins, Jim M.·1996·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Abstract

In vertebrates, inheritance of mitochondria is thought to be predominantly maternal, and mitochondrial DNA analysis has become a standard taxonomic tool. In accordance with the prevailing view of strict maternal inheritance, many sources assert that during fertilization, the sperm tail, with its mitochondria, gets excluded from the embryo. This is incorrect. In the majority of mammals—including humans—the midpiece mitochondria can be identified in the embryo even though their ultimate fate is unknown. The “missing mitochondria” story seems to have survived—and proliferated—unchallenged in a time of contention between hypotheses of human origins, because it supports the “African Eve” model of recent radiation of Homo sapiens out of Africa. We will discuss the infiltration of this mistake into concepts of mitochondrial inheritance and human evolution.

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Metadata

Authors
Ankel-Simons, F., & Cummins, J. M.
Venue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Published
1996-11-26
Volume
93
Issue
24
Pages
13859-13863
ISSN
  • 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-6490
OpenAlex
W2065992351
Cited by
295
References
3
FWCI
5.21
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Misconceptions about mitochondria and mammalian fertilization: Implications for theories on human evolution. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1073/pnas.93.24.13859
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Ankel-Simons, F., & Cummins, J. M. (1996). Misconceptions about mitochondria and mammalian fertilization: Implications for theories on human evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.93.24.13859

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.