From: "ct" <tilley@att.net>
> For the pop-sci crowd, one could always have their mitochondrial
> heritage
> traced back to the 33 daughters of Mitochondrial Eve:
and...
From: "Anders Sandberg"
> But I agree with the general principle: lets make sure our new
> mitochondria are optimal. Maybe with built in safeguards against free
> radicals?
JR Molloy asked:
How can we modify the mitochondria in our own bodies?
There were a few recent articles about successful attempts to concentrate
oligonucleotides in the mitochondrial compartment by conjugating them with
mitochondrial targeting peptides. Others have shown that oligos can
selectively impede copying of matched mtDNA variants. Since mtDNA is being
continually replaced, theoretically you could use oligos targeting mutated
mtDNA to clean up the mitochndrial genomes in certain mtDNA disorders, like
MELAS, perhaps in aging as well. Of course, enormous obstacles would still
have to be overcome but at least there is a strategy that might work.
Rafal Smigrodzki MD-PhD
Dept Neurology University of Pittsburgh
smigrodzkir@msx.upmc.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:39:56 MDT