Justify the statement, 'Mitochondria are power houses of the cell'.

Explanation

Mitochondria are called "power houses" or "ATP mills" or "storage batteries" of the cells as these have structural and physiological adaptations to form ATP molecules with biologically useful energy:
(i) There are large sized in metabolically active cells.
(ii) These are more in number in metabolically active cells like growing, contractile, secretory and dividing cells.
(iii) Inner mitochondrial membrane is produced into cristae to increase the surface area of cell respiration.
(iv) Each crista has F-F particles (also called oxysomes) whose base piece has proton channel while its head has ATP synthetase enzyme to form ATP by phosphorylation of ADP.
(v) Inner mitochondrial membrane has enzymes and carrier molecules of ETC.
(vi) Mitochondrial matrix of inner chamber has enzymes of Kreb.s cycle.