A research group led by Linlin Zhao, professor in the Chemistry Department and Chair of the Environmental Toxicology Graduate Program, has developed a probe that protects mitochondrial DNA from degradation. The probe was designed by Anal Jana, a postdoctoral fellow in the Zhao lab. As described in their article in the German Chemical Society journal Angewandte Chemie International, the mitochondria-targeting probe (mTAP) selectively reacts with abasic (AP) sites, key mtDNA repair intermediates. After mTAP conjugation, DNA substrates containing AP sites are resistant to cleavage by AP endonuclease and the mitochondrial DNA is protected from degradation. More information can be found in a UCR News article on the study and their article (see link above). Our congratulations to Linlin, Amal and Yu-Hsuan Chen, for this interesting and novel work.
