Extracting cellular 'engines' may aid in understanding mitochondrial diseases

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http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=19597.php

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Extracting cellular 'engines' may aid in understanding mitochondrial diseases (Nanowerk News) Medical researchers who crave a means of exploring the genetic culprits behind a host of neuromuscular disorders may have just had their wish granted by a team working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where scientists have performed surgery on single cells to extract and examine their mitochondria ("Detection of Heteroplasmic Mitochondrial DNA in Single Mitochondria"). The scientists reached into these cells and extracted their "engines"—the mitochondria that are in large part responsible for our metabolism. Many human cells contain hundreds of mitochondria, which were thought to be free-swimming organisms millions of years ago and which still possess their own DNA. Mutations in this mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) are directly related to a large class of mitochondrial-based diseases, which have a range of symptoms that include early onset blindness, seizures, hearing lo