WHAT ARE MITOCHONDRIA?

The brain inside the skull is general headquarters for

thought and communications. The lungs and the heart cope with the body's breathing and circulation. Enormous amounts of energy are needed to run these and other miraculous activities. Hence one would expect to find a central power plant where the body produces its own energy.

The body uses electrical energy to run its numerous activities and generate its own power. However, it does not have a central power plant. This amazing work is done by small sausage shape bodies called mitochondria. They are present in all living cells.

Under a powerful microscope, a living cell resembles a turbulent blob of jelly. It is made of cytoplasm, which teems with heaving threads and assorted granules. Somewhere near the center is the dense little nucleus, which directs all the turbulent chemical activity.

Swimming around in the heaving cytoplasm are 50 to 1,000 mitochondria. Each mitochondrion has a smooth outer skin and a crinkled inner skin folded to form a multitude of tiny chambers. Some of the rooms are occupied by small, round granules.

This busy little body is a mini powerhouse that converts sugary foodstuff into electrical energy. To do so, it uses a highly complex series of chemical activities called the Krebs cycel, named for the scientist who identified it way back in the 1930s.

There are 20 or so separate chemical activities, and they all interlock to form the complete cycle. Step by step, the complicated assembly line transforms sugary fuel into large molecules of ATP  which is chemical shorthand for a substance called adenosine trisulphate.

The ATP molecule is actually a string of smaller molecules, which tends to separate. This releases the electrical energy that held them together. Meantime, a chain of electrons is set up to convey electric current, somewhat like a bucket brigade.

    One tiny mitochondrion may    set up 15,000 of these electric chains, each relaying a minuscule current of energy. There may be 1,000 mitochondria in a single cell and a human body may have 60,000 billion living cells. True, the body has no central power plant, but it certainly has enough busy little mitochondria to supply all the energy it needs.