Researchers at the Salk Institute have found that briefly stressing the mitochondria of mouse embryos left those animals' hearts measurably protected in adulthood against a chemotherapy drug known to cause heart failure. They also identified the molecule that carries the protective signal out of the mitochondria, a finding that may help explain why antioxidant drugs have repeatedly failed in clinical trials.
The study was published in Science Advances. The work was done in mice and in mouse cells, and no part of it has been tested in humans.
