A Demonstration in Mice of Whole Mitochondria Delivered as a Therapy

Mitochondria, the swarming power plants of the cell, become damaged and dysfunctional with age. Can this be addressed by delivering complete, whole, new mitochondria as a therapy? There have been signs in past years that cells can ingest and incorporate mitochondria from the surrounding environment, but few useful demonstrations to show whether or not this is common in living tissues. In the research here, researchers achieve that result, delivering mitochondria into tissues as a therapy, and using this approach to treat an animal model of Parkinson's disease. This neurodegenerative condition is associated with degraded mitochondrial function, especially in the dopamine-generating neurons in the brain; depletion of that cell population produces the visible symptoms of the disease. Unfortunately it isn't clear as to whether usefulness in addressing mitochondrial dysfunction in Parkinson's will translate to usefulness in addressing the type of mitochondrial dysfunction thought to cause aging in general. The contribution to aging is based on damage to mitochondrial DNA resulting in mutant mitochondria that are both malfunctioning and capable of outcompeting the normal mitochondria present in a cell quite quickly. Delivering new, fully functional mitochondria might not do much in this situation; they would simply be outcompeted again. It still seems worth the attempt if it turns out to be comparatively easy to replicate this demonstration in mice, on the grounds that you n...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs