on the mother-line DNA doesn't the father have any input?

Question

As I understand it, the mother-line DNA test runs from mother to mother to mother on back into time. As I understand it, DNA is contributed by both parents. One article says we get more DNA from our father than from our mother. [Blog, Discover Magazine, Mar 3, 2015]. We get pairs of genes one from each parent, but the DNA we have is contributed by each parent, half of it from one parent and the other half from the other parent.

One way to look at it is that the genes are like tick birds riding around on the hide of the rhino (the DNA).

So if the mother-line DNA indicates some three different ethnics aside from the N. European -- as I understand it -- the fathers did indeed contribute to the result, yes? The DNA tested is from both parents even if the line traced is the maternal line, right?

So the outriders (the three different ethnics plus the N. European) could have come as a father-line contribution to the daughter, right?

Comments

Okay, so the mitochondrial DNA is passed from the mother to the children, both male and female,

As to the DNA from the father (which will be half the nuclear DNA the child receives) the mitrochondrial DNA is wiped clean from the father's contribution at conception.

And the male child cannot -- because he's male -- pass on his mother's mitrochondrial DNA because it will be wiped clean at conception of his child.

Whereas the female child will pass along the mitrochodrial DNA that her mother passed on to her.

Hmm. and the mitrochondrial DNA is distinct from the nuclear DNA. The main difference is the number of chromosomes. The mDNA is passed down undiluted, unchanged, because it does not combine (it is nonrecombinant)

Still it's a puzzle, say if my gt gt gd pa was 1/2 Polynesian and all the mothers in the line down to me were Caucasian, my mDNA would NOT show the Polynesian strain? Is that what the result is? My piddly bit of Polynesian might show up in my eyes or skin tone but NOT in my mDNA?

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Each cell has one nucleus (unless it's in the process of dividing), but typically has hundreds of mitochondria, each with a mitochondrial DNA ring of about 16,569 nucleotide bases (compared with the 6.5 billion bases in nuclear DNA).  This DNA ring is completely distinct from the nuclear DNA.  The sperm only contributes its nucleus with its nuclear DNA, and apparently none of its mitochondria survive.  Although technically, I'm not sure it's ever been proven that not one of the father's mitochondria can't survive.  If any did, they would however be completely outnumbered, probably not detectable.

So no, no Polynesian contribution from the mitochondria.  If you detect any Polynesian traits, they're autosomally sourced.

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Well, at least I seem to understand some part of this. I would get little to nothing out of a mitochondrial DNA test ... I know my mother, her mother and HER mother (whose name is not certain) and what could it tell me beyond she was N. European? Born in Georgia. I have yet to discover a census that contains HER. Died before the 1880 Census and I have not yet located an 1870 for the family.

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I really like mtDNA, have been studying it quite a bit lately, but yes, it's genealogical tool value is rather low.  I do find mtDNA results to be really interesting by themselves.

It's ethnicity determining value is low because it changes so slowly.  Each change could mean one to two thousand years farther back, so ethnicity estimates are really broad.  A typical mtDNA haplogroup for a typical American will predict broadly European, with possible more north European than south, and higher frequency pockets as widely spread as Turkey, Iberia, Northern Ireland, and the Baltic's.  How useful is that???  Not very, but it's still interesting.  And you might read of ancient DNA with your haplogroup or a forerunner of it, and where they lived, but that can be thousands of years ago.  Really interesting, but completely unhelpful.

In addition, ethnicity information for that one ancestor means almost nothing in your own heritage, because that far back, you are the aggregate of ALL of the thousands of your ancestors, and they are just one line.

It has some match value too, but again somewhat low.  It's often more useful as negative evidence.  If you find a potential person on that maternal line, but another descendant of that potential person has a different mtDNA haplogroup, then they aren't related.  Period.  You might still be related some other way to them, but not on the maternal line.  There has to be a male involved somewhere.

Answer 1

Mitochondrial DNA passes from the mother to both daughters and sons. Y-DNA is a sex chromosome which passes from father to son. The other sex chromosome is the X-chromosome which has a slightly more complicated inheritance pattern. Autosomal DNA is where you get 22 chromosomes with a strand from each parent.

Comments

while sons inherit their mothers Mitochondrial DNA, they cannot pass it onto their children

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Correct. Only the mother can pass it on, but she gives it to all of her children, not just the girls, which was not made clear in Susan’s post.

Answer 2

Yes and no!  There has been a documented case of male transmission of mtDNA to a child but this is rare.  One could also say that the myDNA from the father is always transmitted but quickly destroyed and/or neutralized so that there is no EFFECTIVE transmission regardless of the semantics one might wish to apply to the word 'transmission.'

The debate will wage on (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternal_mtDNA_transmission)

Comments

When I first grasped the info that the sperm is stripped of its mtDNA at conception of the newbie, there arose the Image of the Black Widow Spider which mates and then munches the male that caught her. IT ALSO sounded very much like 2nd stage rocket fuel -- this ripping away of the male's mtDNA -- since there was mention of mtDNA and energy consumption .... WHICH Image will appeal to one is individually decided.

Agree transmission might be inaccurate, attempted transmission, yes, aborted by looting ... well, that's a 3rd Image, the Barbarians sacking Rome.

So, as pointed out the mtDNA might be useful in resolving some cases of disputed maternal heritage and I know of one case back 20 -30 years ago could have used this -- his forebear has something like 21 children with wife "Mary" [which boggled MY mind] and qualified for D.A.R. Except of course, Time and confusion had conflated the three women. It turned out daddy forebear marred 3x each wife named Mary and only the children of the 2nd wife qualified for the D.A.R./S.A.R.  

The chromosomes can sort out themselves 22+1, and even that 1 can become confused otherwise why hermaphrodites? Or like the case of the photog who found out, after wife and x number of children, he COULD have been FEMALE (revealed by an MRI) and so opted for transgender which left his now-deprived wife with massive emotional social and financial trauma ...

I think ticks on the Rhino -- that's the genes (chromosome) riding on the DNA. I think Black Widow -- that's the mtDNA utilized. I think xx and xy and the y is the OTHER contribution made by the male at conception. I think 2nd state rocket fuel booster -- the sperm is stripped to utilize as fuel for conception.

We might raise our flagon and declare the toast Confusion to Our Enemies; we may as well shout Confusion to Our Friend Also -- unless we can get the grip of some understanding of the value of each type of DNA testing and how to determine what genomes were used ... Elizabeth Warren being the fruit tomato being tested against 1000 fruit peach genomes will not exclude her Native American heritage because the 1000 genomes tested contained no valid sample of Native American (Crow, Navajo, Ute, etc) despite multiple numbers of people who HAVE Native American parts having been tested ...

Like, dudes, this has been a total Education and I truly thank you all.