The rise of mitochondria in medicine.

ABSTRACT: Once considered exclusively the cell's powerhouse, mitochondria are now recognized to perform multiple essential functions beyond energy production, impacting most areas of cell biology and medicine. Since the emergence of molecular biology and the discovery of pathogenic mitochondrial DNA defects in the 1980's, research advances have revealed a number of common human diseases which share an underlying pathogenesis involving mitochondrial dysfunction. Mitochondria undergo function-defining dynamic shape changes, communicate with each other, regulate gene expression within the nucleus, modulate synaptic transmission within the brain, release molecules that contribute to oncogenic transformation and trigger inflammatory responses systemically, and influence the regulation of complex physiolo

SUBMITTER: Picard M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5023480 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature