Empty (mt) DNA

Two papers in a recent Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences dispute an earlier finding by MitoKor Inc. that mutations in mitochondrial DNA are associated with Alzheimer's disease. Nevertheless, MitoKor maintains that AD is still associated with defects that are transmissible via mitochondrial DNA.

MitoKor's finding, reported in a May 1997 PNASpaper, was the association of mutations in the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase enzyme subunits CO1 and CO2 with Alzheimer's. The assumption was that an observed defect in cytochrome c oxidase function in AD could be explained by those linked mutations...