Mitochondrial Transcription

Mitochondria are the cell powerhouse, generating all the cellular ATP using the oxidative phosphorylation system OXPHOS. Many age-related diseases, e.g. cancer, diabetes or Alzheimer, are associated with OXPHOS dysfunction. As OXPHOS activity is tightly connected to mitochondrial genome maintenance and expression, any defect in either replication, transcription or translation results has dire consequences for the cell and the organism. Our lab focuses on transcription, the process where RNA is synthesised from the DNA genome.