Sexual reproduction, where offspring result from the fusion of gametes from two parents, is the most common form of biparental inheritance.
Within mitochondrial genomes, biparental inheritance and recombination have been documented in plants, animals and fungi by Barr et al. in 2005,[3] but the extent of these phenomena are thought to vary substantially across taxa.
Occasional biparental mitochondrial transmission may benefit offspring by facilitating the removal of disadvantageous mutations from a population, while at the same time, continuing to restrict the spread of selfish genetic elements, such as genes that have a replication and transmission advantage at the expense of other genes [3] While uncommon among most eukaryotes, biparental inheritance of mtDNA occurs regularly in bivalves.
[6] In 2018, Luo et al. documented evidence of biparental inheritance of mitochondrial DNA in humans, which was thought to be only transmitted maternally.
[8] A defect in such an EndoG-like pathway in humans might produce a paternal contribution, thus explaining a possible mechanism for biparental inheritance.