Michele Frison

Square, neon-colored illustration announcing a “Daily Briefing” on mtDNA, showing mitochondria, DNA, AI icons, literature stacks, exercise symbols, and a bar graph, in a futuristic purple-pink style.

🧬 Introducing the #mtDNA Lab Intel Pipeline!

Our system daily scans PubMed and bioRxiv to bring you: 📄 #Gemini generated Daily Dossiers (PDF) and 🎙️ #NotebookLM generated Podcasts with a focus on #mtDNA-QC and #mtDNA-copy-number

📂 Full Archive:
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Good morning everyone, below is last issue of #mitophagy news 🪫 🔋 🗑️

biomed.news/bims-tofagi/...

This week you'll find insights on the role of mitophagy in germline cells and in inheritance of mtDNA, in mice and in the male arabidopsis germline

Thanks to @biomednews.bsky.social for pre-sorting

Figure 1. Rab1A and Rab1B MitoID ident ifies novel Rab1 effectors. (A) Schematic of the Rab1-MitoID approach in which Rab1 is fused to the promiscuous biotin ligase BirA* and a mitochondrial localization signal from monoamine oxidase (depicted in red), resulting in the relocalization of Rab1 to the mitochondrial membrane. Rab1 interactors will be efficiently biotinylated, while other Golgi proteins and Rab interactors are not. (B) Two-dimensional plot comparing the enrichment of proteins biotinylated by Rab1A-MitoID vs control (BirA alone), plotted against the enrichment of proteins biotinylated with GTP-locked Rab1A (QL) vs GDP-locked Rab1A (SN). For the x axis, the value plotted is that for the nucleotide form of Rab1 that gave the greatest fold change over background. For clarity, Rab1A itself is not shown, as it is part of the BirA* construct. Known effectors and regulators are indicated, with known effectors being enriched in the upper right quadrant. Zoomed regions to the right show a region demarcated by well-enriched known effectors with novel proteins of note identified. For all protein identities and enrichment values see Table S1. (C) as for (B) except with Rab1B rather than Rab1A. (D) Overrepresented GO terms for biological process of the proteins within the regions demarcated by known effectors shown in B and C with the known effectors removed. Ranking is by the summed FDR and enrichment rank. (E) Immunoblots of binding to GST-Rab1A–coated beads of the indicated proteins from HEK293A cell lysates. Rab1A was either Q70L (GTP) or S25N (GDP). The known Rab1 effector RABEP1 (rabaptin-5) is included as positive control (Valsdottir et al., 2001). Source data are available for this figure: SourceData F1.

Welcome to another week of mitophagy papers! 🪫🗑️

biomed.news/bims-tofagi/...

highlights:
-A rab1 A Rab1 interactome illuminates a dual role in autophagy and membrane trafficking
-a review on the role of superoxide in mitophagy
-USP15 inhibition ameliorates PD phenotype in mouse models of disease

MISO regulates mitochondrial dynamics and mtDNA homeostasis by establishing membrane subdomains - Nature Cell Biology Zhang et al. characterize the mitochondrial inner membrane subdomain organizer (MISO) protein, which responds to inner mitochondrial membrane stress by inducing membrane subdomains promoting homeostat...

MISO: An MTFP1 interactor that regulates inner mitochondrial membrane fusion and quality control

MISO regulates mitochondrial dynamics and mtDNA homeostasis by establishing membrane subdomains | Nature Cell Biology

Not gonna lie, it does kind of feel like that

Avian-origin influenza A viruses tolerate elevated pyrexic temperatures in mammals Host body temperature can define a virus’s replicative profile—influenza A viruses (IAVs) adapted to 40° to 42°C in birds are less temperature sensitive in vitro compared with human isolates adapted t...

How does fever work?

Our new Science paper shows how elevated body temperature can protect against severe influenza and that avian-origin viruses escape this defence.

This is likely one reason why bird flus and some pandemic influenzas can be so severe.🧵

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

📢Last 2 weeks of #immunometabolism discoveries @biomednews.bsky.social ⬇️⬇️

biomed.news/bims-imicid/...
biomed.news/bims-imicid/...

Exciting to have a paper in the collection!

An inherited mitochondrial DNA mutation remodels inflammatory cytokine responses in macrophages and in vivo in mice

In this week's mitophagy news:

-a novel screen for endogenous modulators of PINK1-Parkin pathway uncovers unstudied dependencies
-autophagy regulation by phase separation, avidity and wetting
-a bacterial mitophagy receptor to evade inflammation

biomed.news/bims-tofagi/...

Liu et al. discover that pathogenic bacteria use a shared strategy to exploit the host’s cellular recycling process, #mitophagy. Through an effector protein that acts as an external receptor, bacteria suppress inflammatory responses to promote #infection rupress.org/jcb/article/...
#Autophagy

link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007...

Really nice and clear summary :)

Ultra-processed foods and human health: the main thesis and the evidence This first paper in a three-part Lancet Series combines narrative and systematic reviews with original analyses and meta-analyses to assess three hypotheses concerning a dietary pattern based on ultra...

Ultra-processed foods and human health: the main thesis and the evidence - The Lancet www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Altered bottleneck and mitochondrial turnover affect mtDNA mutation load and selection efficiency. (A) Mutational burden was quantified as the total number of mtDNA variants detected per animal. (B) For each animal, the mtDNA N/S ratio was calculated by dividing the number of nonsynonymous variants, normalized to the number of possible nonsynonymous variants in the mitochondrial genome, by the number of synonymous variants, normalized to the number of possible synonymous sites. For (A) and (B): dashed line, median value of the Polg+/+ control group; dotted line, modal value of the Polg+/+ control group; gray, Polg+/+ control group; orange, Polg+/+ Tfam+/− group; blue, Polg+/+ Tfam+/OE group; green, Polg+/+ Bcl2l13−/− group; and pink, Polg+/+ Ulk2−/− group.

Only good papers on mitophagy this week!

biomed.news/bims-tofagi/...

Highlights:
-The bottleneck for maternal transmission of mtDNA is linked to purifying selection by autophagy
-Piecemeal Mitochondrial degradation in plants
-Allophagy?!

Thanks to @biomednews.bsky.social

Cytosolic acetyl-coenzyme A is a signalling metabolite to control mitophagy - Nature Acetyl-coenzyme A functions as a non-canonical signal to trigger mitophagy, and the acetyl-coenzyme A–NLRX1 axis underlies the KRAS-inhibitor-induced mitophagy response and promotes drug resistan...

Cytosolic acetyl-coenzyme A is a signalling metabolite to control mitophagy | Nature

Left, soluble SARs such as SQSTM1/p62, NDP52, OPTN, TAX1BP1, and NBR1 are cytosolic proteins that are recruited to cargo on demand. Their recruitment is commonly driven by ubiquitin (Ub) marks on damaged or misfolded cargo, enabling rapid and flexible targeting of diverse substrates. Upon recruitment, these SARs concentrate autophagy initiation factors at the cargo site to initiate autophagosome biogenesis. Right, transmembrane SARs such as NIX, BNIP3, FAM134B, and CCPG1 are stably integrated within organelle membranes. To prevent unwanted autophagy activation, these SARs require additional layers of control. Selective autophagy can be triggered by transcriptional upregulation (e.g., hypoxia-driven induction of NIX/BNIP3), post-translational modifications such as ubiquitination, or SAR clustering. ER-phagy SARs further promote local membrane bending and scission to excise a portion of the organelle for autophagic removal. While some SARs are transcriptionally induced, others—such as FAM134B—are constitutively present and rely primarily on clustering and post-translational regulation, providing SAR-specific modes of control over autophagosome formation.

Mitophagy updates of last week 🪫🗑️

biomed.news/bims-tofagi/...

Highlights:
-two papers on the beneficial effects of mitophagy in CD8+ T cells
-VPS35 mutations in PD affect PINK1/Parkin mitophagy selectively
-review on selective autophagy initiation

Thanks to @biomednews.bsky.social for pre-sorting

Wonderful work from @mito-oncogene.bsky.social and @edreznik.bsky.social on the role of mito ribosomal RNA in cancer.

Assessment of mitophagy in the Malphigian tubules of the dmt-Keima Drosophila kidney

In this week's issue of mitophagy news 🗑️🪫

biomed.news/bims-tofagi/...

-High sugar diet inhbits renal mitophagy and disrupts renal function
-a review by @soleimanpourlab.bsky.social on mitophagy in diabetic ß-cells
-Optineurin is necessary for mitochondrial removal during erythrocyte maturation

New from us! Had a question about mitophagy but were afraid to ask? 😂

Excited to review the latest advances in beta cell mitophagy research as a key adaptive response in all forms of diabetes in
@cp-trendsendomet.bsky.social. We'd be honored if you have it a read! #T1D #T2D

q.e.d Science Critical Thinking AI for constructive criticism and science evaluation

Here's the link to the system, try it! qedscience.com
@qedscience.bsky.social

🔥 Check out our new paper! @natcellbio.nature.com
Also thanks to @embo.org for their Postdoctoral Fellowship and especially to Mai and Heidi, I learned more than I could ever have imagined in Montreal 🇨🇦 🍁

Ubiquitin-mediated mitophagy regulates the inheritance of mitochondrial DNA mutations - PubMed Mitochondrial synthesis of adenosine triphosphate is essential for eukaryotic life but is dependent on the cooperation of two genomes: nuclear and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). mtDNA mutates ~15 times as...

📢 Check out this exciting new study by Professor Patrick Chinnery from @mrc-mbu.bsky.social, who will be joining #Euromit2026 as keynote speaker!

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41066576/

#MitochondrialDisease #mtDNA #mitochondria #euromit2026
@ua-recherche.bsky.social @chuangers.bsky.social

Thank you so much 🥹 🗑️🪫❤️🥚

Thank you so much Cory! Keeping a look out for more great science from your side

Just out in @science.org: Together with the lab of @wilhelmpalm.bsky.social, we used sequential in-vitro/in-vivo CRISPR screens to decipher metabolic adaptations in tumors. We find that acidosis is a dominant factor that shapes energy metabolism and stress resilience. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Thank you so much Alessandro! Hopefully see you again sometime soon!

Thank you Alex, for your help throughout this project and your ubiquitin and mitophagy wisdom! I was really luck to end up working in the same institute as your lab

A role for BCL2L13 and autophagy in germline purifying selection of mtDNA Author summary We have addressed the role of autophagy on purifying selection of mtDNA by mating different autophagy-deficient mouse models, including knockouts of Parkin, Bcl2l13, Ulk1, and Ulk2, to ...

Thank you so much Elias!! The situation in vivo is quite complex, but there's evidence for a role of receptor-mediated mitophagy in germline purifying selection. We still don't know though, if it's two parts of the same mechanisms, or two consecutive QC phenomena

journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

Thank you so much Viktor :) Thank god you published your paper on NAD+, autophagy and cell death! The choice of galactose in Figure 4 is all thanks to your lab!! And seeing that the survival experiments followed what you observed was such an important sanity check

Thank youuu 😍😍 This would have been nothing without your Western blotting teachings

Thank you so much Dylan🤸 without your encouragement and wishes it would have taken even longer 🤣🤣