Bad mitochondria may actually be good for you

... over time, reactive oxygen species produced by mitochondria while they make energy slowly accumulate and ... and colleagues at McGill University examined the mitochondria of MCLK1-defective mice, a strain known for its ... that in young (3 month old) MCLK1-defective mice, mitochondria were quite energy inefficient and produced a lot ...

Ben-Gurion U. researchers reveal connection between cancer and human evolution

... exclusively from mothers to their children. The mitochondria are essential to every cell's survival and our ... hypothesis, the researchers analyzed the genome mitochondria mutations from 98 unrelated individuals. ... genetic basis of many complex disorders. Since mitochondria play a central role in disease, if we understand ...

Protein regulates movement of mitochondria in brain cells

... brain that plays a key role in the function of mitochondria the part of the cell that supplies energy, ... the molecular machinery that helps distribute mitochondria to different parts of the cell has only recently ... study. "We know that in some disease states that mitochondria function is modified, so understanding how their ...

Researchers identify new function of protein in cellular respiration

... "We found evidence that Stat3 is present in the mitochondria and that it serves to control the production of ... determine the downstream targets of Stat3 in the mitochondria and identify the physiological role of Stat3 that is localized to the mitochondria in heart disease and cancer. ...

New research helps explain genetics of Parkinson's disease

... the cytoplasm of most cells, but translocated to mitochondria in cells that had undergone mitochondrial damage such as membrane depolarization. Damaged mitochondria can trigger cell death pathways; indeed, ... degradation. Parkin may thus prevent the damaged mitochondria from triggering cell death. Because neurons are ...

Mitochondria could be a target for therapeutic strategy for Alzheimer's disease patients

... studies have provided substantial evidence that mitochondria serve as direct targets for amyloid beta ... Aβ progressively accumulates in cortical mitochondria from Alzheimer's disease patients and in brains ... CypD interacts with Aβ peptide within the mitochondria of Alzheimer's disease patients and a transgenic ...

Vitamin C supplements may reduce benefit from wide range of anti-cancer drugs

... restoring viability to the cancer cell's damaged mitochondria the cell's all-important power plant that, when ... to die. "Vitamin C appears to protect the mitochondria from extensive damage, thus saving the cell," ... or not, all anticancer drugs work to disrupt the mitochondria to push cell death." Heaney says that the ...

Cutting calories could limit muscle wasting in later years

... of redox-active metals in cells. If the mitochondria become unhappy or are ready to kick the bucket, ... suicide. They're tricky beasts." The suicidal mitochondria can damage the rest of the muscle cell, leading ... the rats got, the more iron accumulated in the mitochondria and the more damage was done to its RNA and DNA. ...

Hebrew University develops novel approach for treating mitochondrial disorders

... administered to patients on a regular basis. mitochondria are special little organelles within the cells ... the cells that perform specialized tasks). The mitochondria play a critical role - most of the numerous ... produced by a metabolic reaction.) Inside the mitochondria there are thousands of enzymes that carry out all ...

Newly identified role for 'power plants' in human cells could lead to targeted therapies

... missing, and proteins are not manufactured, the mitochondria are unable to generate adequate energy. ... on which kinds of cells are affected. mitochondria are encased in their own membrane, making them a ... yeast and plants, can tRNAs be imported to the mitochondria from the cell cytoplasm, the fluid-based area ...

New chemical tool kit manipulates mitochondria, reveals insights into drug toxicity

... Biotechnology. Over the last few decades, mitochondria have increasingly been understood as a key ... as metabolic diseases such as diabetes. Since mitochondria are responsible for turning the food we eat into ... activity. Historically, most studies on mitochondria were done by isolating them from their normal ...

Sidestepping cancer's chaperone

... of Hsp90 (and its related molecule TRAP-1) in the mitochondria of tumor cells. mitochondria are organelles that produce a cells energy, but ... colleagues indicate that Hsp90 and TRAP-1 protect mitochondria in tumor cells from fulfilling their role in cell ...

UF scientists reveal how dietary restriction cleans cells

... The effects can be disastrous if malfunctioning mitochondria arent removed, they begin to spew out suicidal ... and rebuilding. In this process, damaged mitochondria are quickly swallowed up and degraded. The broken ... cells are less adept at this process, so damaged mitochondria tend to accumulate and contribute to aging. ...

Stress signals link pre-existing sickness with susceptibility to bacterial infection

... the energy generating 'powerplants' of the body, in the hopes that more mitochondria will result in a better power supply. Researchers now show that the ... mitochondria. Infectious bacteria, like Legionella , target the mitochondria and might use them to supplement their own needs and survival ....

'Show me the money!' MDA greenlights grants

... a three-year $400,000 grant to continue research into diseases of the mitochondria caused by genetic mutations. mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell and, when they fail, can cause muscle ...

Researchers engineer metabolic pathway in mice to prevent diet-induced obesity

... enable the shunt, then introduced the cloned E. coli genes into the mitochondria of liver cells in mice; mitochondria are where fatty acids are burned in cells. The researchers found ...

DNA repair mechanisms relocate in response to stress

... excising and re-copying damaged segments. To complicate matters, mitochondria (cells' miniature power plants) have their own DNA. Working with ... One DNA repair enzyme they studied, Ntg1, moves to the nucleus or the mitochondria depending on where DNA damage is concentrated, the authors found. In ...

Forget the antioxidants? McGill researchers cast doubt on role of free radicals in aging

... "The mutation that increases longevity affects the main SOD found in mitochondria inside the animals' cells," said Hekimi. "This is consistent with earlier findings that mitochondria are crucial to the aging process. It seems that reducing mitochondrial ...

Nearly a century later, new findings support Warburg theory of cancer

... and Jeffrey Chuang compared the cardiolipin content in normal mouse brain mitochondria with CL content in several types of brain tumors taken from mice. ... were used to compare the lipid characteristics of the normal and the tumor mitochondria samples. Major abnormalities in cardiolipin content or composition were ...

Researchers at IRB Barcelona produce more data on key genes in diabetes

... for regulating the whole cascade of genes and proteins that allow mitochondria to produce energy by means of oxidative phosphorylation. Now, for the ... and when the gene that regulates this fusion is decreased, the function of mitochondria is also impaired. But where is Mfn2 situated in the genetic map of ...

A link between mitochondria and tumor formation in stem cells

... relationship between stem cell potency and the metabolic rate of their mitochondria a cell's energy makers. Stem cells with more active mitochondria also have a greater capacity to differentiate and are more likely to form ...

Nixing immaturity in red blood cells

... Nix, the cells would not effectively rid themselves of organelles called mitochondria and consequently become short-lived, leading to anemia, said researchers ... molecule). We think the finding is not limited to the clearance of mitochondria in red blood cells, said Wang. When other cells get old or stressed, their ...

Mounting evidence shows red wine antioxidant kills cancer

... The discovery is critical because, like the cell nucleus, the mitochondria contains its own DNA and has the ability to continuously supply the cell ... to be safe as long as a physician is monitoring.) They evaluated the mitochondria function of the cells treated with resveratrol, and also measured ...

Study of malaria parasite in patient blood finds distinct physiological states

... which relies on two specialized cellular compartments called the mitochondria and the apicoplast. That result is particularly surprising since mitochondria in P. falciparum were previously thought to be non-functional. "For ...

454 Sequencing: Science paper describes a novel, highly efficient method of sequencing ancient DNA

... woolly mammoths. The study, entitled "Whole-Genome Shotgun Sequencing of mitochondria from Ancient Hair Shafts" appears online (ahead of print) today in the ... of this new method by employing 454 Sequencing to sequence the entire mitochondria from 10 individual Woolly mammoths. Several of the hair samples ...

Zebrafish to shed light on human mitochondrial diseases

... cytochrome coxidase, an enzyme located in the mitochondrion of every cell. mitochondria are crucial cellular workhorses that provide chemical energy. Research of ... use of mice is limited, because knocking out protein expression in mice mitochondria to mimic human-disease states results in large numbers of deaths in utero. ...

How mitochondria get their membranes bent

... This release is available in German . mitochondria are the powerhouses of cells. Underneath their smooth surface they harbor an elaborately folded inner membrane. It holds a multitude of bottleneck ...

New potential therapeutic target discovered for genetic disorder -- Barth syndrome

... by a mutation in the genetic coding of tafazzin, an enzyme of the cardiolipin pathway. Cardiolipin is an essential lipid in the inner membrane of mitochondria responsible for normal cell structure and energy production. BTHS patients exhibit defects in cardiolipin metabolism which help fight infections. The ...

Self-digestion as a means of survival

... Serono in Darmstadt, is continuing these investigations with the long-term aim of developing new drugs. Dikic and his group are now concentrating on mitochondria - which are implicated in oxidative stress in cells - hoping to locate the receptors for autophagy on these important organelles. ...

Artificial cells, simple model for complex structure

... Science. Cytoplasm is the material that fills the cell and is crowded with very large molecules. It surrounds the organelles -- tiny organs like mitochondria and the nucleus. Unlike organelles, the cytoplasm is a fundamental feature of all cells. Many important biochemical processes take place here, and so ...

Genetic mutation causes familial susceptibility for degenerative brain disease

... of biological events. They suspect the latter and plan in future research to investigate how the mutation may impact the function of mitochondria. mitochondria are the specialized parts of the cell that control energy production. Mutation of RANBP2 is not the only susceptibility gene for the disease, ...

African thicket rat malaria linked to virulent human form

... to anything else but the chimpanzee parasite. But this study places it in a sister group of parasites from rodents." The maternally inherited mitochondria of Plasmodium are among the smallest known in eukaryotes, containing only three protein-coding genes and a total of only about 6,000 nucleotides ...

A new weapon in the fight against obesity and diabetes

... result from activation of SIRT1, an enzyme that is involved in regulating certain key cellular processes, notably the efficiency and number of mitochondria the energy powerhouses of our cells. Because dietary management and exercise rarely succeed by themselves in curbing obesity and associated ...

Oxidative stress: Mechanism of cell death clarified

... enzyme of the arachidonic acid metabolism, the 12/15-lipoxygenase. Activation of apoptosis inducing factor (AIF), evidenced by its relocation from mitochondria to the cell nucleus, was identified as another important event in this signaling cascade. The fact that oxidative stress is a major inducer of ...

Woolly-mammoth gene study changes extinction theory

... of an entire population of extinct mammal by using the complete mitochondrial genome -- all the DNA that makes up all the genes found in the mitochondria structures within cells. Data from this study will enable testing of the new hypothesis presented by the team, that there were two groups of woolly ...

The cooperative view: New evidence suggests a symbiogenetic origin for the centrosome

... the 1920s and subsequently elaborated in the 1960s by Lynn Margulis of University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Today, only two cellular components the mitochondria and the chloroplasts are generally accepted by evolutionary biologists as having a symbiogenetic origin. The Alliegros paper suggests that ...

$13 million federal grant for research into vascular disease awarded to Weill Cornell

... Factor (BDNF) in the promotion of blood-vessel formation in heart-attack patients. Dr. Steven S. Gross (Pharmacology) leads a study of mitochondria (a kind of cellular power plant) in the function and dysfunction of eNOS (endothelial nitric oxide synthase), an enzyme that relaxes the smooth ...

Molecular Biology of the Cell celebrates 25 years of publication

... Properties of Membranes 12. Intracellular Compartments and Protein Sorting 13. Intracellular Vesicular Traffic 14. Energy Conversion: mitochondria and Chloroplasts 15. Mechanisms of Cell Communication 16. The Cytoskeleton 17. The Cell Cycle 18. Apoptosis V. Cells in Their Social ...

Sirtris unveils promising, novel SIRT1 activators for treating diseases of aging

... obese and genetically obese mice, Sirtris small molecule NCEs improve insulin sensitivity, lower plasma glucose levels and increase the function of mitochondria (the powerhouses of all cells). In another well-established preclinical model of Type 2 Diabetes and insulin resistance (Zucker fa/fa rats), these ...

CU-Boulder worm study sheds light on human aging, inherited diseases

... human cells to become diseased or die off in the lab. The team concluded that long life occurs in worms only when energy production by their mitochondria is reduced to very discrete levels. "By tweaking cells into that tight little window of high efficiency, we may be able to increase the life span ...