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Updated: Feb 28, 2026

Author Spotlight: Transmitochondrial Cybrid Generation Using Cancer Cell Lines
Published on: March 17, 2023
Current and upcoming mitochondrial targets for cancer therapy
Hyoung Kyu Kim1, Yeon Hee Noh2, Bernd Nilius3
1National Research Laboratory for Mitochondrial Signaling, Department of Physiology, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, BK21 Plus Project Team, College of Medicine, Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disease Center, Inje University, Busan, Republic of Korea; Department of Integrated Biomedical Science, College of Medicine, Inje University, Busan, Republic of Korea.
Abstract:
Mitochondria are essential intracellular organelles that regulate energy metabolism, cell death, and signaling pathways that are important for cell proliferation and differentiation. Therefore, mitochondria are fundamentally implicated in cancer biology, including initiation, growth, metastasis, relapse, and acquired drug resistance. Based on these implications, mitochondria have been proposed as a major therapeutic target for cancer treatment. In addition to classical view of mitochondria in cancer biology, recent studies found novel pathophysiological roles of mitochondria in cancer. In this review, we introduce recent concepts of mitochondrial roles in cancer biology including mitochondrial DNA mutation and epigenetic modulation, energy metabolism reprogramming, mitochondrial channels, involvement in metastasis and drug resistance, and cancer stem cells. We also discuss the role of mitochondria in emerging cancer therapeutic strategies, especially cancer immunotherapy and CRISPR-Cas9 system gene therapy.
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