Dr. Robert Rountree’s Presentation about Mitochondria

I highly recommend that you watch this –

http://www.viddler.com/v/703896d9?secret=27514482

It’s a video of Dr. Robert Rountree giving a presentation about mitochondria. It’s fascinating!

Fluoroquinolones damage mitochondria. Here are my posts about fluoroquinolones damaging mitochondria –

• Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics Damage Mitochondria – FDA Does Little
• The Fluoroquinolone Time-Bomb – Answers in the Mitochondria
• Same Disease, Different Symptoms: It’s all in the Mitochondria
• Cellular Oxidative Damage from Fluoroquinolones
• Article Breakdown – “Mechanisms of Pathogenesis in Drug Hepatotoxicity Putting the Stress on Mitochondria
• Antioxidant Depletion by Fluoroquinolones

There are more interesting posts about mitochondria on Hormones Matter, and probably some other sites too.

I try to make this complex information a bit more comprehensible than it is in journal article format, but if you want to read through some source articles on how fluoroquinolones damage mitochondria, here are some good ones:

• Science Translational Medicine, “Bactericidal Antibiotics Induce Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Oxidative Damage in Mammalian Cells”

• Journal of Young Pharmacists, “Oxidative Stress Induced by Fluoroquinolones on Treatment for Complicated Urinary Tract Infections in Indian Patients”

• Molecular Pharmacology, “Delayed Cytotocicity and Cleavage of Mitochondrial DNA in Ciprofloxacin Treated Mammalian Cells”

• Chemistry and Biology, “Trovofloxacin, a Fluoroquinolone Antibiotic with Hepototoxic Potential, Causes Mitochondrial Peroxinitrate Stress in a Mouse Model of Underlying Mitochondrial Dysfunction”

• Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, “Calcium Signals are Affected by Ciprofloxacin as a Consequence of Reduction of Mitochondrial DNA Content in Jurkat Cells”

Also, at roughly minute 26 of Dr. Rountree’s presentation, he mentions the link between cardiolipin damage and autoimmune diseases. Here is an article about how fluoroquinolones affect cardiolipin –

Journal of Medical Microbiology, “Comparison of the Effects of Subinhibitory Concentrations of Ciprofloxacin and Colistin on the Morphology of Cardiolipin Domains in Escherichia Coli Membranes”

Dr. Rountree is brilliant and I don’t mean to be critical, but I think that some of the graphs toward the end of the presentation need to be re-drawn. From what I understand from reading the above articles, and others on mitochondria, the effects of ROS (reactive oxygen species – also known as oxidative stress), are not linear. When mitochondria experience a healthy amount of stress – through exercise, for example – there is an adaptive response. It is actually likely that the initial response of mitochondria to fluoroquinolones is an adaptive and healthy one – that could explain some of the experimental results that show a healthy or adaptive response of cells to fluoroquinolones. It is only after the threshold for damage is crossed that a maladaptive/unhealthy response begins. And once that maladaptive/unhealthy response begins, well, it’s bad news because the cell perpetuates damage on itself in the “vicious cycle” of mitochondrial damage. This article explains the phenomenon of a threshold for mitochondrial damage well –

Molecular Interventions, “Mechanisms of Pathogenesis in Drug Hepatoxicity Putting the Stress on Mitochondria”

Can the cycle of cellular damage be stopped? I think so. If feeling good is an indicator of health, I know so. As always, I hope the same for all of you!