From small things

doi:10.1136/bmj.39328.503785.AD

BMJ 2007;335:747-748 (13 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.39328.503785.AD

Feature

Mitochondrial research

From small things

Toby Reynolds, medical student

St George's, University of London, London SW17 0RE

Toby.reynolds@gmail.com

Once the preserve of cell biology textbooks at medical school,mitochondria are now finding their way into all sorts of clinicalpractice, as Toby Reynolds explains

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

What links Parkinson's disease, exercise intolerance, diabetes,and organ failure in sepsis? Anything common to such a disparategroup would need to be quite fundamental, and there aren't manythings more elementary than generating the energy needed tostay alive. This is the job of the mitochondrion—the dynamoof the cell—and recent research indicates that it contributesto a wide range of diseases.

Mitochondria are thought to have started off as free livingprokaryotes that were engulfed by the ancestors of modern nucleatedcells millions of years ago. One of the features hinting attheir previous lives is that they have retained some of theirown DNA.

Although the role of these tiny intracellular organelles isvital, their relevance to clinical practice has often seemedobscure. Cell biologists worked out how mitochondria make energyfour decades ago. Since then medical students have had to traceout how, after a glucose . . . [Full text of this article]