Genetic contributions to mitochondrial traits

Mitochondrial biogenesis is the process of increasing mitochondrial mass in response to physiological stimuli such as growth or exercise. This is a complex process that involves mitochondrial fusion and fission and mtDNA replication. The classical role of mitochondria is energy metabolism, where reducing equivalents from carbohydrate fat, and to some extent amino acids, can be used to generate ATP in the presence of oxygen. Mitochondria are also involved in a variety of other physiological and pathophysiologic processes including oxidative stress, inflammasome activation, telomere maintenance, and activation of apoptosis. The most dramatic influence of mtDNA variants upon exercise capacity are the deleterious effects of specific mutations. The lower VO2max was thought to be related to the known lower oxidative stress and ATP generation efficiency of mitochondrial of haplogroup. A big issue when looking at mtDNA haplogroups is that within a given country the enrichment of the haplogroups will be somewhat homogenous based upon evolutionary migration patterns.