Mitochodria's Role For Neuron Regrowth

Hi, everyone!!

Recently an interesting study has reported. Zhou et al., 2016. J. Cell Biol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1083/jcb.201605101

According to this study, enhancing anterograde axon transport of mitochondria is essential for regeneration of injured axons.

Neurons need a large amount of energy provided by ATP to extend their exons when they are injured. Mitochondria produces

ATP essential for neuron growth, survival and regeneration.

This study shows that in mature neurons, the motility of mitochondria is reduced and the reduced mitochondrial motility might

be the cause of the deficit in regrowth capacity of mature neurons. Moreover, this study found that enhancing mitochondria transport enables mature neurons to recover their regrowth capacity.

It is said that mature neurons typically arrest their cell cycle and fail to proliferate and regrow. However, considering the fact that

only enhancing mitochondria transport enables mature neuron to recover their regrowth capacity, I can't help but doubt the commonly accepted theory.

Don't mature neurons actually arrest their cell cycle？

How do you think of this finding ？

Thank you