mitochondria tagged posts

A new gene therapy targeting the small brain region where dopamine neurons reside, the substantia nigra, substantially boosts the benefits of the drug levodopa in Parkinson’s. The therapy restored the ability of these neurons to convert levodopa to dopamine. Scientists also showed how damage to the powerplants inside dopamine-releasing neurons triggers Parkinson’s. The findings may help identify humans in the earliest stages of Parkinson’s disease, develop therapies to slow disease progression and treat late-stage disease.

In late-stage Parkinson’s disease, the drug levodopa becomes less effective in treating symptoms because of the inexorable loss of dopamine-releasing neurons...

The autoimmune disease lupus may be triggered by a defective process in the development of red blood cells (RBCs), according to a study led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine. The discovery could lead to new methods for classifying and treating patients with this disease.

The researchers, who published their findings August 11 in Cell, found that in a number of lupus patients, maturing red blood cells fail to get rid of their mitochondria — tiny molecular reactors that help convert oxygen into chemical energy in most cell types, but are normally excluded from red blood cells...

Some antibiotics appear to be effective against a form of skin cancer known as melanoma. Researchers at KU Leuven, Belgium, examined the effect of these antibiotics on patient-derived tumours in mice. Their findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

Researchers from KU Leuven may have found a new weapon in the fight against melanoma: antibiotics that target the ‘power plants’ of cancer cells. These antibiotics exploit a vulnerability that arises in tumour cells when they try to survive cancer therapy.

Blocking gene expression in mitochondria in mice stops cancer cells from growing. A newly developed compound starves cancer cells by attacking their “power plants” — the mitochondria. The new compound prevents the genetic information within mitochondria from being read. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and the University of Gothenburg report in their study that this compound could be used as a potential anti-tumour drug in the future; not only in mice but also in human patients.

Mitochondria provide our cells with energy and cellular building blocks necessary for normal tissue and organ function...