Dear Doctor: so I heard that Mitochondrion contain a subset of human DNA, centered around those related to metabolism. The new theory considers the varying status of cancer cells and disputes the bad-DNA-gets-cloned old theory. However, are we sure all mitochondrion modules have the same DNA to begin with. There can be a dozen or two mitochondrion modules in a cell, right? All of them are subject to various kinds of oxidization attacks by various sources. If the mitochondrion modules had also been different since cell birth, would that have introduced more complexity beyond metabolism alone?
If all humans, all cells, have a common RNA/DNA to produce universal mitochondrion, then we have a ready path for mitochondrion replacement therapy. And small variations between people and ethnicity MAY BE tolerable. Using mRNA technology to deliver the correct blueprint of mitochondrion may be viable. Just joking. I am not in this field.
What a great question. If you listened to Dr. Seyfried's talks, then you know that it is indeed now possible to transplant mitochondria from one cell to another. Maybe someday such a strategy will work.
A few thoughts.
I think this is a pretty new technique, and I suspect it is done at present only under laboratory conditions, a few cells at a time. I don't know if mitochondria for all cells is the same-- I kind of remember, not. Do you know?
Blood cell transplants are used to treat some blood malignancies but the procedure almost kills the patient...they try to get rid of the cancerous cells first....hopefully we will get better at this.
Generally such procedures do use the patient's own cells.; when replacing cells, one must use the person's own cells or the body will reject the newcomers.
And, in cancerous organs, there are plenty of normal cells --we think! who knows!-- still in the organ but clearly they are not prevailing against the tumor cells.
I think the best way is to remove the poisoning agent...but there are so many of them, probably.
(BTW I am still thinking about your contributions, on another blog, about CHinese history. Hopefully I will be able to reply soon!)
This is an interesting twist. A hybrid mutation/metabolic model of disease. I don't often think about mtDNA, but why would it not be important in this discussion? Fun to play with - thanks.
Thank you for writing this article. It is stated basically enough for us non-medical types to grasp, and fully enough to spark further interest.
Dear Doctor: so I heard that Mitochondrion contain a subset of human DNA, centered around those related to metabolism. The new theory considers the varying status of cancer cells and disputes the bad-DNA-gets-cloned old theory. However, are we sure all mitochondrion modules have the same DNA to begin with. There can be a dozen or two mitochondrion modules in a cell, right? All of them are subject to various kinds of oxidization attacks by various sources. If the mitochondrion modules had also been different since cell birth, would that have introduced more complexity beyond metabolism alone?
This is an interesting question - thank you for asking it.
If all humans, all cells, have a common RNA/DNA to produce universal mitochondrion, then we have a ready path for mitochondrion replacement therapy. And small variations between people and ethnicity MAY BE tolerable. Using mRNA technology to deliver the correct blueprint of mitochondrion may be viable. Just joking. I am not in this field.
What a great question. If you listened to Dr. Seyfried's talks, then you know that it is indeed now possible to transplant mitochondria from one cell to another. Maybe someday such a strategy will work.
A few thoughts.
I think this is a pretty new technique, and I suspect it is done at present only under laboratory conditions, a few cells at a time. I don't know if mitochondria for all cells is the same-- I kind of remember, not. Do you know?
Blood cell transplants are used to treat some blood malignancies but the procedure almost kills the patient...they try to get rid of the cancerous cells first....hopefully we will get better at this.
Generally such procedures do use the patient's own cells.; when replacing cells, one must use the person's own cells or the body will reject the newcomers.
And, in cancerous organs, there are plenty of normal cells --we think! who knows!-- still in the organ but clearly they are not prevailing against the tumor cells.
I think the best way is to remove the poisoning agent...but there are so many of them, probably.
(BTW I am still thinking about your contributions, on another blog, about CHinese history. Hopefully I will be able to reply soon!)
Appreciate you!
This is an interesting twist. A hybrid mutation/metabolic model of disease. I don't often think about mtDNA, but why would it not be important in this discussion? Fun to play with - thanks.