Energy transduction anchors genes in organelles
The work of mitochondria and chloroplasts is energy transduction in respiration and photosynthesis. The physico-chemical mechanisms of bioenergetics do not directly involve genes and heredity, and furthermore, redox chemistry is intrinsically mutagenic. Thus the small, functional genomes of mitochondria and chloroplasts are an oddity. Although extensively sequenced and catalogued, cytoplasmic geno