INTRODUCTION Several mitochondrial DNA mutations have been reported to be associated with nonsyndromic hearing loss in several families. However, little is known about the prevalence of these mutations in sporadic patients with nonsyndromic sensorineural hearing loss. OBJECTIVE The purpose of our study was to investigate the incidence of these mitochondrial DNA mutations in such population. ...

INTRODUCTION Ataxia telangiectasia (AT) is a rare human neurodegenerative autosomal recessive multisystem disease. AT is the result of mutations in the AT-mutated (ATM) gene. ATM protein is required for radiation-induced apoptosis and acts before mitochondrial collapse. The tRNA genes are considered one of the hot spots for mutations causing mitochondrial disorders. Due to the important role of...

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations have been shown to be involved in several rare and complex diseases. This paper first presents a brief review on mitochondrial genetics, heteroplasmic mtDNA transmission and biological studies for diseases related to mtDNA mutations. Then we present a detail review on statistical methods for testing mtDNA mutation involvement in diseases and for estimating th...

Exciting new studies are increasingly strengthening the link between mitochondrial mutagenesis and tumor progression. Here we provide a comprehensive review and meta-analysis of studies reporting on mitochondrial DNA mutations in common human cancers. We discuss possible mechanisms by which mitochondrial DNA mutations may influence carcinogenesis, outline important caveats for interpreting the ...

Defective RNA metabolism and transport are implicated in aging and degeneration [1, 2], but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. A prevalent feature of aging is mitochondrial deterioration [3]. Here, we link a novel mechanism for RNA export through nuclear envelope (NE) budding [4, 5] that requires A-type lamin, an inner nuclear membrane-associated protein, to accelerated aging o...

Mitochondria from normal and cancerous cells represent a tale of two cities, wherein both execute similar processes but with different cellular and molecular effects. Given the number of reviews currently available which describe the functional implications of mitochondrial mutations in cancer, this article focuses on documenting current knowledge in the abundance and distribution of somatic mi...

To the Editor: We read the article by Chihara N et al. entitled “mitochondrial DNA alterations in colorectal cancer cell lines” with great interest. In this article, authors aimed to find potential roles of mtDNA alterations in colorectal cancers. In order to show mtDNA alteration, they sequenced entire mtDNA of eleven human-derived colorectal carcinoma cell lines. Many point mutations were det...

BACKGROUND: Mitochondrial diseases are clinically and genetically heterogeneous, with variable penetrance, expressivity, and differing age of onset. Diseasecausing point mutations and large deletions in the mitochondrial genome often exist in a heteroplasmic state. Current molecular analyses require multiple different and complementary methods for the detection and quantification of mitochondri...