ONE BABY, THREE PARENTS
DID YOU KNOW?
Embryologists select ‘good’ embryos based on how well the embryo divides and how many chromosomes the cells have
Nuclear DNA resides inside the nucleus of our cells. This DNA is huge, composed of reams of instructions 3.3 billion base pairs in length. Nuclear DNA comes from both our mother and father and is responsible for the vast majority of characteristics we display as we develop. However, our cells also host a small chunk of independent DNA that lives inside cellular components called mitochondria, which are energy-producing factories that power our cells. Mitochondrial DNA comes solely from our mother and is inherited from the fertilised egg cell at the beginning of gestation.