mitochondria tagged posts

Some diabetes medicine reduce the risk of getting Parkinson´s disease by 35%. Copyright: Colourbox

A Norwegian study shows that the taking of diabetes medicine reduces the risk of getting Parkinson´s disease. Researchers at the Department of Clinical Medicine at the University of Bergen (UiB) have discovered that medical treatment against diabetes reduces the risk of getting Parkinson´s disease by 35%. “We have made an important discovery, which takes us a step further towards solving the Parkinson´s riddle,” says researcher Charalampos Tzoulis. He has lead the study together with researcher Kristoffer Haugarvoll at the same department.

Tzoulis says that the researchers have to do follow-up studies on the diabetes medicine to fully understand why it protects against Parkinson´s disease...

UT Southwestern researchers (l-r) Dr. Chaofeng Yang, Lisa Hahner, Dr. Perry Bickel, and Dr. Violetta Gallardo Montejano identified a new role for a protein as a promoter of fat breakdown. Credit: UT Southwestern Medical Center

A protein often located on the surface of fat droplets within cells – and especially abundant in the muscles of endurance athletes – can kick-start the more efficient and healthful breakdown of fat. More than 29 million Americans have diabetes, and it is the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the American Diabetes Association. Almost 26% of Americans age 65 and older have diabetes. The study reports a new role for the protein, Perilipin 5, in the cell nucleus as a regulator of fat metabolism...

Cytochrome oxidase C defects could be a biomarker for cancer screening. To see if the 2nd part of Warburg’s 1924 was correct (“defective mitochondrial function causing cells to be tumorigenic”), the Penn team took cell lines from the skeleton, kidney, breast and esophagus and used RNA molecules to silence the expression of select components of the mitochondrias’ cytochrome oxidase C, or CcO, a critical enzyme involved in oxidative phosphorylation. CcO uses oxygen to make water and set up a transmembrane potential that is used to synthesize ATP (energy source).

The biologists observed disrupting a single protein subunit of cytochrome oxidase C led to major changes in the mitochondria and cells themselves.”These cells showed all the characteristics of cancer cells,” Avadhani said...