Thrown for a D-loop I t won’t force James Watson to retitle the Double Helix, but new research suggests that the three-stranded stretches that frequently turn up in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) aren’t junk. Instead, the triple-stranded forms might provide a scaffold for a protein that helps mitochondria organize their DNA, as He et al. show on page 141. Researchers have known for more than 30 year...

www.landesbioscience.com Cell Cycle 3131 Due to the key role of mitochondria in cell metabolism, the quantity and quality of this organelle must be maintained properly, which is achieved by constitutive mitochondrial fusion and fission as well as biogenesis and degradation. A fission complex controls mitochondrial division, whereas degradation occurs primarily through autophagy. The latter can ...