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Three-parent babies - new therapies of mitochondrial disorders
Helebrandtová, Veronika ; Pecinová, Alena (advisor) ; Ješina, Pavel (referee)
Mitochondria are essential parts of living cells, as they play a key role in cellular metabolism, especially in energy production. Due to their unique structure, the energy released during the oxidation of the substrates can be used to form the ATP. Mitochondria also contain their own DNA (mtDNA), which is maternally inherited and encodes catalytic subunits of oxidative phosphorylation complexes. Mitochondrial disorders of nuclear or mitochondrial origin, are common causes of inherited diseases and affect mainly the tissues with high energy requirements, such as heart or brain. Treatment of mitochondrial diseases is usually symptomatic and does not lead to complete recovery of the patient. As a result, new causal therapies, such as a gene therapy, are currently investigated. However, using this approach it is necessary to consider the origin of the mutation. Gene therapy of mitochondrial diseases of mtDNA origin is very complicated, therefore the new treatment strategy, mitochondrial replacement therapy, has been proposed. The principle of this technique is to prevent the transmission of mutated mtDNA from mother to offspring by transferring the nuclear genome of mother with mitochondrial disorder into donor's denucleated oocyte with healthy mitochondria. In this way, the child has genetic...
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