ArticlePLoS medicine2005
A critical reassessment of the role of mitochondria in tumorigenesis.
Article in PLoS medicine, 2005. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 82 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
82 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 208 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mitochondrial microsatellite instability in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.Virchows Archiv : an international journal of pathology · 2015Pooled it
- The saga of the many studies wrongly associating mitochondrial DNA with breast cancer.BMC cancer · 2014Pooled it
- Molecular oncology focus - is carcinogenesis a 'mitochondriopathy'?Journal of biomedical science · 2010Pooled it
- Evolutionary persistence of a highly prevalent multicopy mitochondrial-derived nuclear insertion (Mega-NUMT) in Neotropical Drosophila flies.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Flow Cytometric Quantification of Mitochondrial Properties: A High-Throughput Approach for Single Organelle Analysis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Mitochondrial Metabolism in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma: From Mechanism-Based Perspectives to Therapy.Cancers · 2023Review
- Review
- Mitonuclear Interactions in the Maintenance of Mitochondrial Integrity.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Review
- Aberrant mitochondrial function in ageing and cancer.Biogerontology · 2020Review
- Profiling of Mitochondrial DNA Heteroplasmy in a Prospective Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Study.Cancers · 2020Article
- Detection of novel mitochondrial mutations in cytochrome C oxidase subunit 1 (COX1) in patients with familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP).Clinical & translational oncology : official publication of the Federation of Spanish Oncology Societies and of the National Cancer Institute of Mexico · 2020Article
- Detection of mitochondrial DNA variants at low level heteroplasmy in pediatric CNS and extra-CNS solid tumors with three different enrichment methods.Mitochondrion · 2020Article
- Mitochondrial DNA: the overlooked oncogenome?BMC biology · 2019Review
- Down-regulation of MRPS23 inhibits LPS-induced proliferation and invasionRSC advances · 2019Article
- Review
- Is detection of intraperitoneal exfoliated tumor cells after surgical resection of rectal cancer a prognostic factor of survival?BMC cancer · 2017Article
- Patterns of cross-contamination in a multispecies population genomic project: detection, quantification, impact, and solutions.BMC biology · 2017Article
- MtDNA and Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy.International journal of clinical and experimental pathology · 2017Article
- The Landscape of mtDNA Modifications in Cancer: A Tale of Two Cities.Frontiers in oncology · 2017Review
- Mitochondrial DNA Mutations in Grade II and III Glioma Cell Lines Are Associated with Significant Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Higher Oxidative Stress.Frontiers in physiology · 2017Article
22 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is being analyzed by an increasing number of laboratories in order to investigate its potential role as an active marker of tumorigenesis in various types of cancer. Here we question the conclusions drawn in most of these investigations, especially those published in high-rank cancer research journals, under the evidence that a significant number of these medical mtDNA studies are based on obviously flawed sequencing results. METHODS AND
findingsIn our analyses, we take a phylogenetic approach and employ thorough database searches, which together have proven successful for detecting erroneous sequences in the fields of human population genetics and forensics. Apart from conceptual problems concerning the interpretation of mtDNA variation in tumorigenesis, in most cases, blocks of seemingly somatic mutations clearly point to contamination or sample mix-up and, therefore, have nothing to do with tumorigenesis.
conclusionThe role of mitochondria in tumorigenesis remains unclarified. Our findings of laboratory errors in many contributions would represent only the tip of the iceberg since most published studies do not provide the raw sequence data for inspection, thus hindering a posteriori evaluation of the results. There is no precedent for such a concatenation of errors and misconceptions affecting a whole subfield of medical research.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.