What is it about?

The mitochondria produces most of the energy in a cell and contains a lot of proteins that are encoded in the genome, but are then delivered to (and active in) the mitochondria. We looked at these nuclear-encoded mitocondrial protein genes (NEMPGs) to find variants that were associated with migrain susceptibility. Once associated variants were discovered, we attempted to replicate the findings in another population, finding three genes where variation seemed to be repeatably associated with migraine.

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Why is it important?

This is the first molecular genetic study to comprehensively investigate the role of NEMPs in migraine susceptibility and we present empirical evidence for the first time to establish a link between mitochondrial dysfunction and migraine.

Perspectives

I was asked to carry out the initial data trawling expedition: finding gene regions spanned by NEMPGs (as found in the MitoProteome database) and determining which of those genes had variation in our Norfolk Island SNPchip dataset. The list of variants was then passed on to other investigators for filtering and statistical analysis.

Dr David A Eccles
Malaghan Institute of Medical Research

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This page is a summary of: Gene-centric analysis implicates nuclear encoded mitochondrial protein gene variants in migraine susceptibility, Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine, January 2017, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/mgg3.270.
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