Friday, July 09, 2004

Mitochondria in spinal cords is ALS target

This came up in a daily news alert.

Mitochondria in spinal cords is ALS target according to UCSD medical researchers

It seems that mutant SOD1 (which we've heard of before) does something to the mitochondria in the spinal chord. It doesn't affect cells elsewhere, just the large motor neurons there. The result is that the mitochondria don't produce as much energy, and they may be triggering cell death.

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