Mitochondria News and Research

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New study could provide a potential new drug to help fight obesity

Our bodies contain two types of fat: white fat and brown fat. While white fat stores calories, brown fat burns energy and could help us lose weight. Now, scientists at the University of Cambridge have found a way of making the white fat 'browner' and increasing the efficiency of brown fat.

27 Nov 2018

Researchers discover new mitochondrial mechanism

Researchers at the University of Freiburg have discovered a mechanism within cells that enables proteins to be delivered into the mitochondria.

22 Nov 2018

'Longevity protein' restores muscle regeneration after injury in older animals

One of the downsides to getting older is that skeletal muscle loses its ability to heal after injury. New research from the University of Pittsburgh implicates the so-called "longevity protein" Klotho, both as culprit and therapeutic target.

21 Nov 2018

Mercury is not well detoxified by yelloweye rockfish, researchers find

It takes six months to get really good at accurately gauging the age of yelloweye rockfish. Because they can live for up to 120 years, this species is of particular interest to Benjamin Barst and scientists like him who study the effects of toxic chemicals on living organisms.

21 Nov 2018

Researchers identify molecule to fight myotubular myopathy

Myotubular myopathy is a severe genetic disease that leads to muscle paralysis from birth and results in death before two years of age. Although no treatment currently exists, researchers from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, - working in collaboration with the University of Strasbourg, France, - have identified a molecule that not only greatly reduces the progression of the disease but also boosts life expectancy in animal models by a factor of seven.

19 Nov 2018

Surprising discovery about BH4 may rekindle interest in once-promising pathway

In 2013, renowned Boston Children's Hospital pain researcher Clifford Woolf, MB, BCh, PhD, and chemist Kai Johnsson, PhD, his fellow co-founder at Quartet Medicine, believed they held the key to non-narcotic pain relief.

19 Nov 2018

New method to analyze cell membrane complexes could revolutionize the way we study diseases

Researchers have developed a new technique to analyze cell membrane proteins in situ which could revolutionize the way in which we study diseases, such as cancer, metabolic and heart diseases.

17 Nov 2018

Researchers show how proteins interact in hypoxic conditions to facilitate mitochondrial fission

During a heart attack the supply of oxygen to heart cells is decreased. This reduced oxygen level, called hypoxia, causes the cell's powerhouses, the mitochondria, to fragment, impairing cell function and leading to heart failure. Until now, few details were known on how this important process occurs.

17 Nov 2018

Researchers produce 3D chemical maps of small biological samples

Scientists at the National Synchrotron Light Source II --a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory--have used ultrabright x-rays to image single bacteria with higher spatial resolution than ever before.

16 Nov 2018

Research team identifies Ashkenazi Jewish founder mutation for Leigh syndrome

Over 30 years ago, Marsha and Allen Barnett lost their sons to a puzzling childhood disease that relentlessly attacked their nervous systems and sapped their energy.

15 Nov 2018

TAMEST recognizes UT Southwestern’s Ralph DeBerardinis for changing our understanding of cancer

Ralph DeBerardinis, M.D., Ph.D., professor at the Children's Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern is the recipient of the 2019 Edith and Peter O'Donnell Award in Medicine from TAMEST.

14 Nov 2018

Researchers discover how mitochondria deploy a powerful punch against disease-causing bacteria

The constant battle for dominance between disease-causing bacteria and our immune systems has led to the evolution of some crafty warfare tactics on both sides.

12 Nov 2018

Mitochondrial DNA may have strong influence on cellular metabolism and disease susceptibility

About 1.5 billion years ago, tiny visitors came to live inside the cells that later evolved into all plant and animal life -- including humans.

9 Nov 2018

New evidence reveals link between antioxidant intake and increased tumor growth

Now there is additional evidence of the connection between the intake of antioxidant supplements and increased tumor growth. Experiments on animals and human cancer tissue confirm that addition of some antioxidants increases the growth of the severe malignant melanoma type of skin cancer.

1 Nov 2018

Neuroene Therapeutics receives $1.5 million NIH grant to develop anti-seizure compound for epilepsy

Neuroene Therapeutics, a start-up company founded by mitochondrial biologist Sherine S. L. Chan, Ph.D. and medicinal chemist C. James Chou, Ph.D. of the Medical University of South Carolina, has received a $1.5 million NIH Phase II Small Business Innovation Research grant to optimize vitamin K analogues that could improve seizure control in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy.

29 Oct 2018

Insights into tumor initiation pave way for new skin cancer treatments

Researchers from VIB and KU Leuven uncovered a key vulnerability of melanoma. While studying the role of the melanoma-specific long non-coding RNA SAMMSON in tumor initiation, the researchers found that it boosts protein synthesis in different cellular compartments. Normal cells are alerted by modification in protein synthesis and react to this threat, but only if this process is altered in one compartment at the time.

29 Oct 2018

How a single mutation can devastate cellular function

A scientist has shown how a single mutation in a protein found in astrocytes reproduces fibrous globs that devastate cellular function.

23 Oct 2018

Next-generation RNA sequencing technology sheds new light on human mitochondrial diseases

The ability to translate the genetic code into proteins is an essential step in all living organisms. A cornerstone of this molecular process is the ability of transfer RNA (tRNA) molecules to couple recognition of the genetic code with the cognate amino acid, which are the building blocks of proteins.

19 Oct 2018

Researchers uncover how common pain reliever causes liver failure

Acetaminophen is a common pain reliever found in every pharmacy. However, it is also the No. 1 cause of acute liver failure in the United States. In the liver, acetaminophen is converted into a new compound that covalently binds to proteins at an amino acid called cysteine.

11 Oct 2018

Network of doctors identify the cause of 31 new conditions

A network of hundreds of doctors has uncovered the biological characteristics of 31 previously unknown diseases and provided diagnoses for many unsolved cases.

11 Oct 2018