Underpowered Eyes

All the power our cells need to live, thrive and survive comes from mitochondria – tiny ‘power stations’ that convert the fuel in our food into energy. Unsurprisingly, problems with these cellular powerhouses cause serious problems in the body. Faults in one of the molecular ‘building blocks’ of mitochondria – a protein called SLC25A46 – have recently been linked to a wide range of conditions affecting the nerves and brain, known as neurological diseases. By studying mice with a faulty version of the gene encoding the mouse version of SLC25A46, scientists are starting to figure out how it affects the mitochondria and causes disease. These images show cells in the retina at the back of the eyeball taken from a healthy mouse (left) compared with the retina of an animal with faulty SLC25A46. By studying these differences in depth, researchers hope to understand more about neurological diseases and also find potential future treatments.

Written by Kat Arney

Kat Arney

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Dr Kat Arney is an award-winning science writer, broadcaster and public speaker, and is the founder and Creative Director of First Create The Media.

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• Image from work by Maria Eirini Terzenidou and Aikaterini Segklia, and colleagues
• Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology, Hellenic Pasteur Institute, Athens and Laboratory of Genetics, Department of Biotechnology, Agricultural University of Athens, Greece
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Published in PLOS Genetics, April 2017