Mitochondria contain their own DNA, with 13 critical genes controlling cellular life, which if compromised, lead to death.

“it's very hard to come up with an alternative explanation for why you would have this effectively foreign DNA inside every cell and I just I'm so intrigued by this mitochondrial DNA thing because again it's such a tiny number of genes on a relative scale but yet they're so critical and to my knowledge is I don't think there's any other organelle that carries its own genes with it is there no it doesn't and and what's interesting is that it only encodes for like a 1% of you know there's I don't know 1,000 proteins in the mitochondria critical you knock those 37 genes out no you knock out any one of those genes out you're done you're done”

“I just I'm so intrigued by this mitochondrial DNA thing because again it's such a tiny number of genes on a relative scale but yet they're so critical and to my knowledge is I don't think there's any other organelle that carries its own genes with it is there no it doesn't and and what's interesting is that it only encodes for like a 1% of you know there's I don't know 1,000 proteins in the mitochondria critical you knock those 37 genes out no you knock out any one of those genes out you're done you're done and so why did the mitochondria hold on to those right”