As direct descendants of ancient bacteria, mitochondria have always been a little alien.
Columbia University Irving Medical CenterAug 22 2024 Mitochondria in our brain cells frequently fling their DNA into the nucleus, the study found, where the DNA becomes integrated into the cells' chromosomes. And these insertions may be causing harm: Among the study's nearly 1,200 participants, those with more mitochondrial DNA insertions in their brain cells were more likely to die earlier than those with fewer insertions.
In the past few decades, researchers discovered that mitochondrial DNA has occasionally "jumped" out of the organelle and into human chromosomes. "Jumping mitochondrial DNA is not something that only happened in the distant past," says Kalpita Karan, a postdoc in the Picard lab who conducted the research with Weichen Zhou, a research investigator in the Mills lab. "It's rare, but a new NUMT becomes integrated into the human genome about once in every 4,000 births. This is one of many ways, conserved from yeast to humans, by which mitochondria talk to nuclear genes.
Their analysis showed that nuclear mitochondrial DNA insertion happens in the human brain-;mostly in the prefrontal cortex-;and likely several times over during a person's lifespan.
DNA Mitochondria Aging Bacteria Behavioral Medicine Blood Cell Cortex Genes Genome Laboratory Medicine Organelle Research Stress Virus
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