Re: [DIYbio] Re: Longecity: a crowdfunding strategy worth watching

That is very interesting. If genes in the mitochondria are defect from aging, just inserting it into the nucleus seems a very nice idea. However, mitochondrial defects will happen randomly, so every cell would need another protein repaired? Or is the basic idea expressing all vital mt-genes in the nucleus, so defects don't be lethal to the cells anymore?   

It isn't quite a random process. Per the mitochondrial free radical theory of aging there are only thirteen important mitochondrial genes in this mechanism, where damage will lead to a particular set of electron transport chain defects that cause defective mitochondria in the herd to evade quality control via mitophagy and outcompete non-defective mitochondria, taking over the cell.

Other mutations don't have that effect, and so will be winnowed.

There's a layman's summary here:

https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2006/10/how-age-damaged-mitochondria-cause-your-cells-to-damage-you.php

(Which excludes many of the complications to this theory, such as the fact that mitochondria promiscuously share genes, and fuse as well as split).

From a tinkering point of view, the interesting part isn't inserting genes into the nucleus but rather the very inventive hackery researchers have to indulge in to get the expressed proteins back into the mitochondria where they belong.

Reason