In most plants and animals, including humans, mitochondria are inherited exclusively, or nearly exclusively, from the mother.

A new study shows that plants can inherit mitochondria from their father, restoring fertility when maternal mitochondria are defective, challenging traditional views on mitochondrial inheritance.

Gonzalez-Duran, E., Liang, Z., Forner, J. et al. High-frequency biparental inheritance of plant mitochondria upon chilling stress and loss of a genome-degrading nuclease. Nat. Plants (2026).

In most eukaryotes, the inheritance of mitochondrion and its DNA (mtDNA) is strictly maternal, despite the fact that a spermatozoon can inject up to 100 functional mitochondria into the oocyte during ...