Verity Mitchell

• BSc (Hons) Biomedical Genetics
• Investigating the effect of chronic inflammation on mitochondrial function in a prematurely ageing mouse model

A mouse model of chronic low-level inflammation has been utilised to see if there are any links between chronic inflammation and mitochondrial dysfunction. This mouse lacks expression of the p50 subunit of NF-κB, which is an important epigenetic repressor of inflammatory gene expression. This results in accelerated ageing of the mouse and a lack of tissue regeneration. Histochemical techniques were used to analyse mitochondrial respiratory chain protein expression within a variety of tissue from wildtype and P50 knockout mice. These results were also extensively analysed using statistical techniques to test the difference between complex I, complex IV and porin expression

Funding source: Newcastle University