DNA repair deficiency in neuropathogenesis: when all roads lead to mitochondria

Luis Bermúdez-Guzmán and Alejandro Leal; Translational Neurodegeneration 20198:14 doi:10.1186/s40035-019-0156-x

Diseases such as Friedreich’s ataxia and MIRAS (caused by POLG mutations) present an extended phenotype, maybe derived from the equal vulnerability that these variants confer to the mitochondria in the whole organism. Even though the clinical difference is evident, still more research is needed to understand the molecular basis of this systemic damage compared with the diseases that tend to present a pathological tropism.