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Mitochondria: back to the future

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology volume 19, page 76 (2018)Cite this article

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Much of the first half of the 20th century was devoted to discovering metabolic pathways and processes, including those linked to the mitochondria. By the 1970s, there was a consensus as to how the mitochondria generate ATP and metabolites for macromolecule synthesis. Thus, the broader biology and medicine communities felt that there was not much more biochemical knowledge related to the mitochondria to be learned. Surprisingly, in the 1990s, research on mitochondria made a comeback, capturing the imagination of different fields ranging from cancer, to immunity, organismal metabolism and neuroscience — but how?

There are likely a myriad of reasons that account for the comeback, but for me, there is one particular paper that stands out. This study has had an impact on the way I think about the role of mitochondria in biology and physiology.

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References

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  1. Feinberg School of Medicine,Deparment of Medicine,Northwestern University, Evanston, 60208, IL, USA

    Navdeep S. Chandel

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  1. Navdeep S. Chandel
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Correspondence to Navdeep S. Chandel.

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Chandel, N. Mitochondria: back to the future. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 19, 76 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm.2017.133

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