Think of cells as the biological answer to battery-powered electronics, Mitochondria are the batteries that supply them with enough energy to keep going.
Unfortunately, just like the two standard AA’s in your remote control, they eventually run out of power and die—but (much like actual batteries) they can also be recharged and replaced.
Breakdown of mitochondria causes cells to glitch.
Wear and tear can happen with age, usually from years of exposure to free radicals that cause oxidative stress and inflammation, but can also be caused by injury from degenerative diseases or mitochondrial toxicity from certain drugs and other harmful substances.
When there is damage to the cell, mitochondria begin to lose their capacity to generate energy. Losing mitochondria is detrimental to cell function.
This is why biomedical engineer Akhilesh Gaharwar and his research team at Texas A&M University have come up with a way to regenerate them.
There is a repair mechanism already built in.
While healthy cells can transfer some mitochondria to replace what was lost in ailing cells, much like an emergency run to the hardware store, this process is far from efficient when it comes to replacing all the dead batteries.
Dysfunctional mitochondria are not only the result of neurodegenerative, cardiovascular or metabolic disorders, but can also be part of the cause.
Gaharwar was able to fast-forward intercellular mitochondrial transfer by creating nano-structures which were then implanted into human mesenchymal stem cells.
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC’s) display a particular propensity for initiating mitochondrial transfer to nearby cells; their mitochondria enhance cellular respiration, induce cell reprogramming, and repair metabolic function in recipient cells.
Because they have strong immune capabilities and do not burn as much energy as many other types of cells, mesenchymal stem cells were ideal for the team to experiment on in vitro.
The few methods that exist to boost mitochondrial transfer require an immense amount of effort and still face obstacles.
Gaharwar got around this by creating nano-flowers out of molybdenum disulfide, a bio-material that has also been used to eliminate free radicals that cause cell degeneration.
What sound like alien blossoms are actually structures with vacancies that encourage the formation of mitochondria in the stem cell.
The presence of nano-flowers activated a pathway that increases the production of mitochondria, and pushed stem cells to generate up to twice the number of mitochondria they normally would.
Boosted cells were then introduced to cells whose batteries were losing power. More mitochondria meant faster transfer.
They made their way from donor cells to recipient cells via intracellular structures used specifically for this purpose. Despite the weakness of cells on the receiving end, they were recharged by their new batteries.
There are added benefits to mitochondrial transfer.
Smooth muscle cells found in the walls of blood vessels, especially arteries, need high energy levels and respiration efficiency for vascular contraction, a process which narrows blood vessels and helps control blood pressure.
Gaharwar and his team wanted to see how these cells would react to an influx of mitochondria.
Not only were they supercharged by the transfer, but the researchers think that it actually induced changes to the cell transcriptome, which is all of the RNA molecules, or transcripts, reflecting active genes that have been transcribed into a cell from the genome.
Mitochondrial metabolism was also enhanced.
He thinks that individuals in the early stages of degenerative diseases have the greatest chance of seeing results.
Our MoS2 nano-flower-based strategy offers a broadly applicable platform for pathologies requiring mitochondrial repair and replacement.
By enhancing mitochondrial transfer and promoting mitochondrial biogenesis, this nano-material approach holds promise as a therapeutic tool for managing mitochondrial dysfunction.
Crickey Cell and Food Balance / ABC Flash Point News 2026
Welcome to 2026, the moment in time scientists discover that life can be prolonged if we could manipulate mutating cell DNA into reproduction with Nano technology robots running through our blood stream to perform the repairs.
Only for the rich and chosen ones, the poor and cattle can go to hell and visit Sodom and Gomorrah?