Meet the scientists!

Mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell, responsible for providing enough energy so the cell can do things like replicate or carry out its functions.

A mitochondria taken using an electron microscope

Mitochondria have their own genome (this is tiny whne compared to the amount of DNA in the nucleus) which contains enough information to make 13 proteins which are some of the proteins needed to make energy. Sometimes the mitochondrial genome can become mutated which can affect the amount of energy made for a cell. If the mutation is severe enough, this can cause a range of diseases called the mitochiondrial diseases.

Mitochondrial Diseases affect 1 in 8000 people in the UK. Although this may seem like not many, 1 in 200 people carry a mutation that can cause these diseases http://www.mitoaction.org/mito-faq. That means you will probably know someone with a hidden mutation in their DNA. Because mitochondria are in every cell, the diseases can affect any part of the body. However, cells that need lots of energy, such as muscle and nerves are affected much more.

I grow cells in our lab for a couple of days to get enough cells to do my experiments on. After 3 days I add a compound to the growth medium of the cells and leave it for 9 days.

Cell culutre in my lab looks something like this…

 The compounds that I add are in fact small pieces of DNA that should stop mutated mitochondrial protiens being made.

When the 9 days is up I kill the cells and extract their proteins and DNA. I can then see if the amount of mutated DNA has gone down and also if only good proteins that work correctly are made. I do these experiments using a range of techniques that involves PCR and using antibodies to see the proteins.

I also extract stem cells from mitochondrial disease patients blood to see if they work correctly and produce all the correct blood cells needed to be healthy.  

Alot of the work in our lab is done whilst listening to music….. here is who I listen to when im doing all my hard work!