It has been reported that human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can transfer mitochondria to the cells with severely compromised mitochondrial function. We tested whether the reported intercellular mitochondrial transfer could be replicated in different types of cells or under different experimental conditions, and tried to elucidate possible mechanism. Using biochemical selection methods, we fou...

BACKGROUND Large-scale genome sequencing poses enormous problems to the logistics of laboratory work and data handling. When numerous fragments of different genomes are PCR amplified and sequenced in a laboratory, there is a high imminent risk of sample confusion. For genetic markers, such as mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which are free of natural recombination, single instances of sample mix-up i...

The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of neural stem cells (NSCs) is vulnerable to oxidation damage. Subtle manipulations of the cellular redox state affect mtDNA integrity in addition to regulating the NSC differentiation lineage, suggesting a molecular link between mtDNA integrity and regulation of differentiation. Here we show that 8-oxoguanine DNA glycosylase (OGG1) is essential for repair of mtDNA...

BACKGROUND Mitochondrial biogenesis is under the control of two different genetic systems: the nuclear genome (nDNA) and the mitochondrial genome (mtDNA). The mtDNA is a circular genome of 16.6 kb encoding 13 of the approximately 90 subunits that form the respiratory chain, the remaining ones being encoded by the nDNA. Eukaryotic cells are able to monitor and respond to changes in mitochondrial...

A modified, rapid and inexpensive method for preparation of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), suitable for molecular analysis is proposed. It comprises batch cultivation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain NBIMCC 583 on a simple nutrient medium at 28 degrees C; permeabialization of cells from late exponential growth phase with cetyltrimethylamonnium bromide, mechanical disintegration of the cell wall; ...

In 1987 Rebecca Louise Cann, Mark Stoneking, and Allan Charles Wilson published "Mitochondrial DNA and Human Evolution" in the journal Nature. The authors compared mitochondrial DNA from different human populations worldwide, and from those comparisons they argued that all human populations had a common ancestor in Africa around 200,000 years ago. Mitochondria DNA (mtDNA) is a small circular ge...

The study of genetic disease is often centered on the human nuclear genome consisting of ~3.1 billion nucleotides and 25,000–30,000 genes located on the 23 pairs of chromosomes, whereas the mitochondrial genome has received less attention. Each cell contains numerous mitochondria and each mitochondrion contains several copies of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Thus, a cell contains several thousand ...

In rat cultured pulmonary arterial (PA), microvascular, and venous endothelial cells (ECs), the rate of mitochondrial (mt) DNA repair is predictive of the severity of xanthine oxidase (XO)-induced mtDNA damage and the sensitivity to XO-mediated cell death. To examine the importance of mtDNA damage and repair more directly, we determined the impact of mitochondrial overexpression of the DNA repa...

Recent reports of strong selection of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) during transmission in animal models of mtDNA disease, and of nuclear transfer in both animal models and humans, have important scientific implications. These are directly applicable to the genetic management of mtDNA disease. The risk that a mitochondrial disorder will be transmitted is difficult to estimate due to heteroplasmy-th...