Talk about life’s NUMTS and bolts!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Mitochondria – your body’s energy supplier – has a side hustle: inserting their D-N-A into your brain! Should we be afraid?!
Enter the Mills team at the University of Michigan. They examined little bits of that mitochondrial D-N-A called Numts.
Researchers correlated LIFESPAN with the number of Numts in over one thousand donated human brains. They found one Numt gets added every two weeks, and MORE Numts in the brain mean SHORTER lifespans.
More than the powerhouse of the cell, mitochondria leave their genetic mark on our D-N-A. This research could forge a path to slow aging and improve our quality of life.
Just don’t go Numts thinking about your mortality!
Reference: Zhou, W., Karan, K.R., Gu, W., Klein, H.-U., Sturm, G., De Jager, P.L., Bennett, D.A., Hirano, M., Picard, M., Mills, R.E., 2024. Somatic nuclear mitochondrial DNA insertions are prevalent in the human brain and accumulate over time in fibroblasts. PLOS Biology 22, e3002723.. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002723