Beyond The Disease, December 3, 2025

“Ribonucleotides in Mitochondrial DNA and Inflammation” describes a recent multi-institute study published in Nature and led by Thomas Langer at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne. The study found that increased incorporation of ribonucleotides into mitochondrial (mt)DNA during replication resulted in the release of mtDNA fragments into the cytosol and an increase in inflammation.

In “Quality Control of Mitochondrial DNA Transmission”, MitoWorld’s Gary Howard describes a recent paper in Science Advances showing how the genetic bottleneck and the purifying selection reduce the risk of transmission of mutant mitochondrial DNA to offspring. The research effort was led by Professor Nils-Göran Larsson, at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden.

In the “Energy Resistance Principle” (ERP), MitoWorld’s Dane Wolf reports on a recent Cell Biology Perspective by Drs. Martin Picard and Nirosha Murugan on a new framework proposing that life’s fundamental processes can be understood as electrical circuitry of electron flow from food to oxygen. The ERP suggests that health depends on maintaining a “goldilocks zone” of energy resistance within this biological circuitry—too much or too little resistance disrupts energy transformation and leads to disease.

In Mitochondrial Dysfunction after Repetitive Head Injuries, MitoWorld editor Gary Howard summarizes a recent paper in iScience. A research team led by Keisuke Kawata showed that athletes with ADHD with repetitive head injuries had elevated baseline levels of tricarboxylaic acid cycle metabolites. After head injuries, both those with and without ADHD had lower levels, showing that all athletes experience mitochondrial dysfunction after head injuries.