Simulating the mitochondrial DNA bottleneck
A probabilistic model is proposed with dynamics which naturally leads to a bottleneck in the number of mitochondria transmitted from one host-cell generation to the other. We take into account deleterious mutations during the replication of mitochondria within a cell of a germ-line and introduce selection inside the cell reproduction mechanism. The bottleneck size strongly depends on the selection mechanism and on the maximum number of mitochondria per cell. We obtain that the smaller the maximum allowed number of mitochondria per cell during replication, the tighter the bottleneck. Such a result is in agreement with the fact that species producing small litters provide developing oocytes with a smaller number of mitochondria. This amplifies the differences among oocytes leading to competition and removal of inferior cells.
bottleneck probabilistic model mtdna monte carlo