Why do muscle cells need mitochondria?

1 Answer
May 11, 2016

Mitochondria are the living organism energy generator. Accordingly, muscle cells are the living systems mechanical motor, thus it needs energy.

Explanation:

The number of mitochondria in a cell can vary widely by organism, tissue, and cell type. For instance, red blood cells (i.e. the cells that can oxygen in the blood) have no mitochondria, they need to make no mechanical activity, whereas liver cells can have more than 2000, since it participates in important physiological processes, that requires energy, e.g. glycogenolysis, the process of breaking down glycogen into glucose. Another example is the heart, full of muscle cells, it is one of the richest organ in term of mitrocondria.

The most prominent roles of mitochondria are to produce the energy currency of the cell, ATP (i.e., phosphorylation of ADP), through cell respiration, and to regulate cellular metabolism.

Thus, Why do muscle cells need mitochondria?, because muscle need energy for mechanical activities, and the mitochondria can provide them with that.

Mitochondria in details

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