Looking at the abstract for the study: So not only were they able to establish the cause-and-effect link, but they were also able to create a novel mechanism to activate specific mitochondrial...
Looking at the abstract for the study:
Blockquote Many brain disorders involve mitochondrial alterations, but owing to the lack of suitable tools, the causal role of mitochondrial dysfunction in pathophysiological processes is difficult to establish.
Blockquote Here, we show that a mitochondria-targeted recombinant designer receptor exclusively activated by designer drugs (mitoDREADD-Gs) can acutely trigger intramitochondrial signaling to increase mitochondrial membrane potential and oxygen consumption...Thus, mitoDREADD-Gs enables the establishment of causal relationships between mitochondria and biological or disease-related processes and represents an innovative potential therapeutic approach for disorders associated with mitochondrial impairment.
So not only were they able to establish the cause-and-effect link, but they were also able to create a novel mechanism to activate specific mitochondrial proteins, which is also very cool and useful for future research.
"This work is the first to establish a cause-and-effect link between mitochondrial dysfunction and symptoms related to neurodegenerative diseases, suggesting that impaired mitochondrial activity could be at the origin of the onset of neuronal degeneration," explains Giovanni Marsicano, Inserm research director and co-senior author of the study.
Looking at the abstract for the study:
So not only were they able to establish the cause-and-effect link, but they were also able to create a novel mechanism to activate specific mitochondrial proteins, which is also very cool and useful for future research.
From the article: