Historical Background and Reviews

Mitochondria are believed to be a product of Darwinian evolution, representing a symbiotic relationship between a primordial eukaryotic cell that existed on earth with minimal or no oxygen, and an ingested bacterium that could ameliorate the fatal toxic properties of oxygen by converting it to water.  Millions of years later during the 1960s, scientists came to appreciate that mitochondria housed the most effective production site of ATP, the fundamental energy source, using a complex chemical reaction process called respiration that reduces oxygen to water.  This interest in mitochondria was rather brief and declined quickly.  However, with the rapidly increasing appreciation during the past five years that mitochondria may be critical in cell and organ function and in a rapidly expanding group of pathological processes such as programmed cell death, mitochondrial research is now enjoying a renaissance.