A Discussion of Recent Work on Allotopic Expression of Mitochondrial Genes at the SENS Research Foundation

A paper published last month outlines recent progress on allotopic expression of mitochondrial genes carried out by the SENS Research Foundation team. Allotopic expression is the name given to the process of putting copies of mitochondrial genes into the nuclear genome, suitably altered to allow proteins to be generated and shipped back to the mitochondria where they are needed. Mitochondria replicate like bacteria, and some forms of stochastic mitochondrial DNA damage can make mitochondria both dysfunctional and able to outcompete their undamaged peers. This is thought to be an important contribution to aging, resulting a small but damaging population of cells that are overtaken by broken mitochondria and which export harmful reactive molecules into the surrounding tissues. Having a backup supply of mitochondrial proteins can in principle block these consequences of mitochondrial DNA damage, and thus remove this contribution to the aging process. Proof of concept has been demonstrated for a few of the thirteen proteins needed, and work proceeds on the rest. As noted here, one of the challenges in this project is that mitochondrial genetic machinery is of a different evolutionary origin to that of the cell nucleus, and thus the efficient production of equivalent proteins from nuclear genes is a much more challenging process than would otherwise be the case. While the vast majority of mitochondrial proteins are encoded by the nuclear genome, translated in the c...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs