• Question: how many mitochondria are there in a animal cell

    Asked by halw to Ollie on 14 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by georginaneumann.
    • Photo: Ollie Russell

      Ollie Russell answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      This depends on the cell. In the stem cells that I work with, there are only three or four. Generally speaking the more energy the cell needs, the more mitochondria they have. Things like muscle cells (which need ATP to generate movement) and nerve cells (which use ATP to make action potentials) need loads of mitochondria to provide all this energy. Most of these cell types have 1000’s of mitochondria!

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