Do ribosomes regulate mitochondrial RNA synthesis?

The levels of different classes of mitochondrially encoded transcripts are developmentally regulated in sea urchin embryos, as a result of selection between mutually exclusive synthetic pathways. I propose a simple model to explain these observations, based on a dual role for mitochondrial ribosomes and translation factors in RNA synthesis as well as in translation. This effect may be exerted either at the transcriptional or post-transcriptional level (or both), and is potentially generalizable to mammalian mtDNA and to other systems.