Reply to Lutz-Bonengel et al.: Biparental mtDNA transmission is unlikely to be the result of nuclear mitochondrial DNA segments

In Luo et al. (1), we report the transmission of paternal mtDNA in 17 individuals across three unrelated families. In their letter responding to this paper, Lutz-Bonengel et al. (2) argue that these results do not provide sufficient evidence for paternal inheritance of mtDNA. Instead, they propose that these biparental inheritance events are the result of “nuclear elements of mtDNA” [(numts), or nuclear mtDNA segments (NUMTs)]. Although rare, nearly full-length mtDNA insertions have been occasionally observed (3, 4), and there is a possibility that such insertions could superficially resemble a genuine mtDNA. While we appreciate these concerns, we must point out that our paper merely documents the unusual transmission of apparently full-length paternal mtDNA sequences … [↵][1]3To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: taosheng.huang{at}cchmc.org. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1