BACKGROUND Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSAS) is a disease associated with the increase of cardiovascular risk and it is characterized by repeated episodes of Intermittent Hypoxia (IH) which inducing oxidative stress and systemic inflammation. Mitochondria are cell organelles involved in the respiratory that have their own DNA (MtDNA). The aim of this study was to investigate if the increase of oxi...

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is highly susceptible to mutations that result in polymorphisms and diseases including diabetes. We analyzed heteroplasmy, polymorphisms related to diabetes, and complementation by fusogenic proteins. Cytoplast fusion and microinjection allow, defects in mutated mtDNA inside a heteroplasmic cell to be complemented by fusing two mitochondria via human fusogenic proteins...

Intracellular sources of peroxynitrite formation and potential targets for this powerful oxidant and nitrating agent have not been identified after acetaminophen (AAP) overdose. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that peroxynitrite generated in mitochondria may be responsible for mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and nuclear DNA (nDNA) damage. C3Heb/FeJ mice were treated with 300 mg/kg AAP and monitor...

INTRODUCTION Combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) can effectively prevent vertical transmission of HIV but there is potential risk of adverse maternal, foetal or infant effects. Specifically, the effect of cART use during pregnancy on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) content in HIV-positive (HIV+) women is unclear. We sought to characterize subclinical alterations in peripheral blood mtDNA levels...

Mitochondria contain their own DNA (mtDNA), which codes for 13 proteins (all subunits of the respiratory chain complexes), 22 tRNAs and 2 rRNAs. Several mtDNA point mutations as well as deletions have been shown to be causative in well-defined mitochondrial disorders. A mixture of mutated and wild type mtDNA (heteroplasmy) is found in most of these disorders. Inheritance of mtDNA is maternal, a...

Activation of cell death in mammals can be assessed by an increase of an amount of cell-free DNA (cf-DNA) in urine or plasma. We investigated the excretion of cf nuclear DNA (nDNA) and cf mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in the urine of rats 3 and 24 months in age after X-irradiation and metformin administration. Analyses showed that prior to treatment, the amount of cf-nDNA was 40% higher and cf-mtDN...

Oxidative stress may play an important role in the pathogenesis of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Mitochondria produce reactive oxygen species (ROS), which induce degenerative changes typical for AMD. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is targeted by ROS and it is considered to be more vulnerable to damage than nuclear DNA (nDNA) due to the impaired DNA repair system, lack of nucleosomal organi...

It has been asserted that recent mtDNA phylogenies support the plausibility of sympatric speciation, long considered a controversial mechanism of the origin of species. If such inferences are reliable, mtDNA phylogenies should be congruent with phylogenies based on other data. In previous work, a mtDNA phylogeny suggested that diversification of the Hawaiian cricket genus Laupala was initiated ...