First Published Paper for the SENS Research Foundation Mitochondria Team

For most of the past decade the SENS Research Foundation has helped to fund work by various groups on allotopic expression of mitochondrial genes, a way to both cure mitochondrial disease and, more importantly, prevent mitochondrial DNA damage from contributing to the aging process. Allotopic expression works by creating backup copies of important mitochondrial genes in the cell nucleus, altered such that the resulting proteins can make their way back to the mitochondria where they are needed. Some of that work gave rise to Gensight in France, where researchers are commercializing the ability to move one of these genes into the nucleus. Last year a crowdfunding initiative provided the funds for the SENS Research Foundation in-house scientific team to finalize demonstration of allotopic expression of two more genes. The open access paper resulting from that work was recently accepted for publication, and here it is: Mitochondria carry out oxidative phosphorylation principally by using pyruvate, fatty acids and amino acids to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP). In animals, mitochondria are the only cellular organelles that possess their own DNA, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which in humans contains 37 genes including genes encoding mitochondrial tRNAs, mitochondrial rRNAs and 13 oxidative phosphorylation (OxPhos) complex proteins. Both pediatric and adult-onset diseases have been identified that are caused by point mutations or partial deletions in mtDNA. Mitochondria...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs