Mitochondrial DNA changes during exercise

[o11y]

(Context) I'm a medical student in the UK about to apply for an intercalated year of academic research before my clinical training starts.

Anyway, I was considering a project based on the changes to mitochondria during exercise. There are papers that have been published showing certain genes in the nuclear genome are upregulated during exercise and aerobic training will lead to an increased mitochondrial count in each cell. I am wondering if there is any published research as to whether or not there is an increase in transcription in the mitochondrial genome in response to exercise. It would make sense that as well as increasing the number of mitochondria in a muscle cell, there would also be more respiratory proteins in each mitochondrion, leading to a more efficient mitochondrion. As the mitochondrial genome codes some of these proteins, it follows that those genes would be upregulated. I can't find any research on the subject, would anyone know of any?

 

Cheers

[memyselfandi]

What a fascinating topic. I think this would be perfect as a research project.

 

A good database for research papers online is google scholar (scholar.google.com). I found one paper that could aid you in your studies. You can obtain a copy of it via the link pasted below. Best of luck for your future studies.

 

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4613-4609-8_8

[CharonY]

Well, the mitochondrial genome (in humans) is extremely limited and many functions relevant to mitochondria are encoded in the nucleus. That being said, there are quite a few transcriptome studies pertaining to exercise. A quick pubmed scan revealed that much is probably done on skeletal muscle functions.

[AndresKiani]

Yeah, I mean it changes throughout the day. Transcription/Translation and gene expression changes within the second. Its a very dynamic process.

[CharonY]

Not within a second. An average transcript requires about 10s or more, a protein significantly longer. However tens of seconds to minutes would be correct.