Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0751651 (mitochondrial disease)
 1,844 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Ataxia-telangiectasia mutated (ATM) plays a central role in DNA damage responses, and its loss leads to development of T-cell malignancies. Here, we show that ATM loss also leads to intrinsic mitochondrial abnormalities in thymocytes, including elevated reactive oxygen species, increased aberrant mitochondria, high cellular respiratory capacity, and decreased mitophagy. A fraction of ATM protein is localized in mitochondria, and it is rapidly activated by mitochondrial dysfunction. Unexpectedly, allelic loss of the autophagy regulator Beclin-1 significantly delayed tumor development in ATM-null mice. This effect was not associated with rescue of DNA damage signaling but rather with a significant reversal of the mitochondrial abnormalities. These data support a model in which ATM plays direct roles in modulating mitochondrial homeostasis and suggest that mitochondrial dysfunction and associated increases in mitochondrial reactive oxygen species contribute to the cancer-prone phenotype observed in organisms lacking ATM. Thus, ataxia-telangiectasia should be considered, at least in part, as a mitochondrial disease.
 ...
PMID:Mitochondrial dysfunction in ataxia-telangiectasia. 2214 82

Mitochondrial myopathy, Encephalopathy, Lactic Acidosis, and Stroke-like episodes (MELAS) is a common subtype of mitochondrial disease with high disability and mortality rate. The molecular mechanisms of MELAS are largely unknown and whether autophagy is activated in this disease remains controversial. In this work, we reported whole transcriptome profiling of skeletal muscle of MELAS patients and age-matched controls. Analyses revealed that MELAS patients had 224 differentially expressed genes (174 down-regulated, 50 up-regulated) compared to age-matched controls. Most of these genes relevant to MELAS are involved in signal transduction, metabolic process and immune system process. However, the RNA-seq data indicated that autophagy was not altered in MELAS. Functional assays showed that increased reactive oxygen species (ROS), decreased ATP production and decreased lysosome content in fibroblasts derived from MELAS patients, suggesting that mitochondrial dysfunction and degradation deficiency in MELAS. Furthermore, Western-blot analyses using skeletal muscle and fibroblasts derived from MELAS patients showed that autophagy was impaired in MEALS since two important autophagic genes: Beclin-1 and LC3-II, were significantly down-regulated. In conclusion, our study identified molecules and pathways involved in the mechanisms of MELAS, and the impairment of autophagy in this disease, which may serve as the potential therapeutic target for MELAS.
 ...
PMID:RNA-seq profiling, and impaired autophagic process in skeletal muscle of MELAS. 3183 43