Mitochondria provide a constant supply of energy to drive the work being done throughout the cell, therefore they are sometimes referred to as “cellular power plants” (Wilbur, B., 2007, p. 219). The mitochondria are organelles that convert energy from food molecules into most of the cell’s supply of Adenosine triphosphate (ATP). ATP is called the energy currency of the cell and is used as a source of chemical energy. The more work a cell does the more ATP that cell will need and the more mitochondria that cell will have, i.e. the number of mitochondria present in a cell depends upon the metabolic requirements of that cell. The number of mitochondria in each cell may range from a single large mitochondrion to thousands of the organelles (Davidson, M.W., 2004).
Structurally, mitochondria, like all other organelles, are encased in an outer membrane but mitochondria also have an inner membrane. To describe these 2 membranes,