Human deafness dystonia syndrome is a mitochondrial disease
- Carla M. Koehler,
- Danielle Leuenberger,
- Sabeeha Merchant*,
- Anja Renold,
- Tina Junne, and
- Gottfried Schatz†
-
Contributed by Gottfried Schatz
Abstract
The human deafness dystonia syndrome results from the mutation of a protein (DDP) of unknown function. We show now that DDP is a mitochondrial protein and similar to five small proteins (Tim8p, Tim9p, Tim10p, Tim12p, and Tim13p) of the yeast mitochondrial intermembrane space. Tim9p, Tim10p, and Tim12p mediate the import of metabolite transporters from the cytoplasm into the mitochondrial inner membrane and interact structurally and functionally with Tim8p and Tim13p. DDP is most similar to Tim8p. Tim8p exists as a soluble 70-kDa complex with Tim13p and Tim9p, and deletion of Tim8p is synthetically lethal with a conditional mutation in Tim10p. The deafness dystonia syndrome thus is a novel type of mitochondrial disease that probably is caused by a defective mitochondrial protein-import system.
Footnotes
-
↵ * Present address: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1569.
-
↵ † To whom reprint requests should be addressed. e-mail: schatz{at}unibas.ubaclu.ch.
-
A Commentary on this article begins on page 1817.
- ABBREVIATIONS:
- DDP,
- deafness dystonia polypeptide;
- HA,
- hemagglutinin;
- TIM or Tim,
- translocase of the mitochondrial inner membrane;
- TOM,
- translocase of the outer membrane;
- ts,
- temperature sensitive
- Copyright © 1999, The National Academy of Sciences
