Reviewing the Mitochondrial Contribution to Aging and Age-Related Disease

Today I'll point out a fairly readable review paper that walks through the high points of what is known of the mitochondrial contribution to degenerative aging and the common, well-studied age-related diseases that cause the greatest amounts of suffering and death. Every cell has a few hundred mitochondria swarming inside it, evolved descendants of ancient symbiotic bacteria that are now fully integrated components of the cell. They are highly active components: they replicate and fuse, pass molecular machinery between one another, are destroyed by cellular quality control mechanisms when they become damaged, and can even transfer between cells, all conducted at a rapid pace. Most of their DNA has moved into the cell nucleus, but a small number of genes remain to form the circular mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondria are primarily responsible for generating chemical energy stores, providing the power for cellular operations, but they also participate in many other fundamental cellular processes in one way or another. There are two ways we might think of mitochondria in the context of aging. The first is the SENS view of the mitochondrial contribution to aging. The mitochondrial DNA becomes damaged, either through replication or because building energy store molecules is a process that generates potentially damaging, reactive molecules as a side-effect. Sometimes that damage cuts out an important part of the energy generation machinery, creating a mitochondrion that both run...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs