线粒体DNA的研究进展及其法医学应用

Proceedings of human mitochondrial DNA Study and its applications to forensic medicine

线粒体DNA(mitochondrialDNA,mtDNA)是存在于细胞质内的环状DNA。它的存在早在三十多年前就有人提出。如今,关于线粒体的研究领域是生物医学中发展最快的学科之一。它的发展基于一些很基本且有趣的问题的提出,这些问题主要是关于线粒体是如何进化,如何产生能量。另外,在疾病中线粒体基因如何发生突变、细胞凋亡如何受到它的调节、以及衰老如何对线粒体DNA发生影响等问题都有待解答,而且对这些问题的探讨将会对诸如人类学、法医学以及疾病的治疗有很大的用途。

The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is a small circular genome located within the mitochondria in the cytoplasm of the cell. Evidence of its existence first arose over 30 years ago. Now the field of the mitochondria is one of the fastest growing disciplines in biomedicine which is driven by fundamentally interesting questions. These questions are mainly about the way of mitochondria evolving and energy producing. In addition, what the consequences of mitochondrial genome mutations in diseases are? How program cell death is regulated? What happens to mitochondria when aging? These questions remain to be answered and the basic understanding of them will contribute to anthropological and forensic analysis, as well as therapy of many diseases. The following review has brought this question to notice by summarizing recent mitochondria research.