Question: Once Mitochondria stop working in a specific cell, can they start working again?

Georgia Campbell answered on 21 Jun 2011:

Usually, once the mitochondria in a cell stop working then they don’t start working again, but this depends on how many of the mitochondria have been damaged.

Every cell has lots of mitochondria in, and they have a pretty quick turnover (new mitochondria are copied from old ones, and the old one’s die off pretty regularly). If only a few mitochondria have DNA damage and stop working, sometimes these die off quickly and all of the mitochondria in the cell work properly.

Usually though, if a lot of the mitochondria are damaged, its more likely that these are replicated in the cell, so more and more of the mitochondria in the cell have the same damage. Above a certain level (a ‘threshold’ of around 70%) the cell stops producing energy properly, and the mitochondria in that cell won’t get healthy again.