Recent developments in mitochondrial medicine (Part 1)

Research into elucidating structure and function of mitochondria has been quite steady between the time of discovery during the end of the 19th century until towards the late 1980’s. During the 1990s there was talk about a “comeback” of this organelle reflecting a widely revitalized interest into mitochondrial research which was based on two major discoveries made during that time. The first was the etiological association between human diseases and mitochondrial DNA mutations, while the second revealed the crucial function of mitochondria during apoptosis. The March 5th, 1999 issue of Science even featured a textbook image of a mitochondrion on its front cover and was entirely dedicated to this organelle. Whilst the term “comeback” might have been appropriate to describe the general excitement surrounding the new mitochondrial discoveries made during the 1990s, a term for describing the progress made in mitochondrial research during the last two decades is difficult to find. Between 2000 and 2020 the number of publications on mitochondria has skyrocketed. It is now widely accepted that there hardly exists any human disease for which either the etiology or pathogenesis does not seem to be associated with mitochondrial malfunction. In this review we will discuss and follow several lines of mitochondrial research from their early beginnings up to the present. We hope to be able to convince the reader of what we expressed about a decade ago, that the future of medicine will come through mitochondria.