Long, long ago in the primordial soup, before the arrival of multicellular life, single-celled life was eating and being eaten. Normally this is the starkest of all zero-sum games. When the lion wins, the wildebeest loses - big time.

But there was a notable exception in the soup. One prey species evolved a remarkable defense. They became indigestible. Once they were ingested they made themselves at home within their predator. They became mitochondria.

There must have been conflict at first. The cell probably did try to digest the mitochondria and the mitochondria probably sickened the cell.

But at some point a truce was called and a partnership flourished. Cells with mitochondria could out-compete their neighbors because the mitochondria devoted itself to being an energy factory for the cell. The cell returned the favor by protecting the mitochondria and taking over more and more of the other tasks that, formerly, the mitochondria did for itself.

For awhile the two partners were still individuals. Like our intestinal flora, mitochondria had a home, but maintained their own DNA.

But the mitochondria had a good reason for giving up even this function. Being an energy factory is a dirty, toxic job. The DNA kept within mitochondria was (and is) constantly bombarded with mutagens. And mutated mitochondria become less efficient and eventually quit working.

Evolution responded by moving mitochondrial DNA out of the mitochondria and into the relative safety of the cell nucleus. When mitochondrial genes work from the safety of the nucleus its called allotopic expression. The more that mitochondrial DNA moved to the nucleus, the risk for mitochondrial failure was reduced. This pressure has served as a one-way ratchet pushing the migration of mitochondrial DNA to the nucleus.

Even now this process is not complete. Human mitochondria still maintains a few of its own genes. And this is a problem. Aubrey de Grey has identified mitochondrial mutations as one of the seven reason we age.

His proposed solution is elegant - finish the job that evolution started. Put the rest of mitochondrial DNA into the nucleus. De Grey is not suggesting that we do away with mitochondrial DNA. Instead of a "cut and paste," we do a much simpler "copy and paste." Then when the mitochondrial DNA becomes too damaged to work, the backup copy of those genes in the nucleus does the job. With complete allotropic expression even a mitochondria with gibberish DNA would, in theory, continue to work just fine.

Until recently all the research in this area was aimed at a group of diseases called mitochondriopathies - congenital defects in the mitochondrial DNA.

Picking up the ball, Eric Schon and his coworkers from the Department of Neurology at Columbia took the next step, inserting a cloned copy of the algae's TP6 gene into the nucleus of human cells whose mitochondrial DNA harbored the same mutations that cause these neuromuscular diseases in humans. The cells decoded the genetic instructions, turned out the protein in the main chamber of the cell, imported it into the mitochondria...rescuing the cells from the destructive effects of the mutation.

Ending Aging, page 91.

Aubrey de Grey believes that this research – though aimed at a group of rare diseases - will help us battle the mitochondrial problems that we all get as we grow older. Now research sponsored by the Methuseleh Foundation – with which Aubrey de Grey is affiliated - is beginning to bear fruit.

PhD candidate Mark Hamalainen of Cambridge University presented the initial success in his Methuselah Foundation-funded work on allotopic expression, showing evidence that his allotopically-expressed genes could encode the relevant proteins and that these were taken up into the mitochondria. In this case, the genes encode healthy and defective versions of the protein that is miscoded in Neuropathy, Ataxia and Retinitis Pigmentosa (NARP), a hereditary mitochondrial disease characterized by blindness and weak and uncoordinated muscles. Well done! It is good to see Foundation-funded research make such solid progress; many thanks go to the generous donors who have made this possible.

FuturePundit Randall Parker has started reviewing Ending Aging (like me, he's having to publish his thoughts in installments). His first post is covering ground I've neglected - the pro-Aging trance. Check it out.