Mitochondria: beyond oxidative phosphorylation.

Mitochondria are essential eukaryotic organelles that perform many functions in addition to oxidative phosphorylation. Some of these functions are still poorly understood or as yet undiscovered, but may resemble already known functions in bacteria. The rapidly growing sequence information on bacterial genes, the polymerase chain reaction, and gene disruption in yeast thus offer a powerful approach for discovering new mitochondrial functions.