A Toolkit for the Study of Mitochondria in the Nervous System

TOPICAL COLLECTIONS

Guest Editors

Evgeny Shlevkov

Biogen

Evgeny Shlevkov, PhD, is a Scientist II at Biogen. Before joining Biogen, he was a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Thomas Schwarz at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, where he focused on understanding the molecular links between mitochondrial biology and neurodegeneration in the context of Parkinson’s disease. Evgeny earned his PhD in Biochemistry at the Center for Molecular Biology “Severo Ochoa” in Madrid, Spain.

Amos Gutnick

Biogen

Amos Gutnick, PhD, is a researcher at Biogen’s Neuromuscular and Muscle Disease Research Unit. He earned his PhD in Molecular Biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, under the tutelage of Dr. Gil Levkowitz, during which time he established live imaging techniques to uncover the molecular biology driving neurodevelopment in zebrafish. Before joining Biogen, he was a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Thomas Schwarz at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, where he coinvented Zapalog, a method for controlling intracellular protein localization, and subsequently employed this method to study mitochondrial motility and anchoring in neurons.

Collection Overview

Mitochondria are multifaceted organelles with key roles in cellular metabolism, bioenergetics, cell death, and innate immunity. Dysfunctional mitochondria are linked to many neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Many widely prescribed drugs (such as metformin) have mitochondrial targets. Moreover, dysfunctional mitochondria are a hallmark of ageing. However, precisely how do different mitochondrial functions contribute to neurological disease remains unclear. In this Collection, we present advances in methods and protocols for the interrogation of mitochondrial functions in the context of the nervous system. The issue includes, but is not limited to, advanced methods for imaging mitochondria, the study of mitochondrial metabolism, as well as methods for the interrogation of mitochondrial turnover, transmitophagy, and mitochondrial transfer.