The Tsukuba team in particular has performed some compelling research that has led them to propose that age-associated mitochondrial defects are not controlled by the accumulation of mutations in the mitochondrial DNA but by another form of genetic regulation. The research, published this month in the journal Nature's Scientific Reports, looked at the function of the mitochondria in human fibroblast cell lines derived from young people (ranging in age from a fetus to a 12 year old) and elderly people (ranging in age from 80-97 years old). The researchers compared the mitochondrial respiration and the amount of DNA damage in the mitochondria of the two groups, expecting respiration to be reduced and DNA damage to be increased in the cells from the elderly group. While the elderly group had reduced respiration, in accordance with the current theory, there was, however, no difference in the amount of DNA damage between the elderly and young groups of cells. This led the researchers to propose that another form of genetic regulation, epigenetic regulation, may be responsible for the age-associated effects seen in the mitochondria. - www.sciencedaily.com