Mitochondria atlas across tree of life reveals parasite drug targets

Overview

Updated 1 hour ago

Scientists have mapped the full set of mitochondrial proteins in six organisms: five parasites and one plant. The atlas spans 8,619 proteins across eight species and includes 33 protein families found in pathogens but not in humans.

Those families are candidate drug targets for malaria, sleeping sickness, and leishmaniasis, which together infect hundreds of millions of people. The same data back the view that mitochondria arrived late in eukaryotic evolution, after the ancestral cell already had a nucleus and other complex machinery.

Why it matters

If any of the 33 parasite-only protein families proves druggable, it could yield treatments for diseases that infect hundreds of millions of people.

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Key Indicators

8,619

Mitochondrial proteins catalogued

Across eight organisms: the six newly mapped species plus humans and yeast.

3,199

Protein families identified

The families span the full tree of life that was sampled.

Parasite protein families absent in humans

Conserved across two or more pathogens, making them candidate drug targets.

43%

Share of families with no Pfam domain

Signals genuinely new biology that was previously overlooked.

Voices

Curated perspectives — historical figures and your fellow readers.

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People Involved

Vamsi Mootha

Professor at Harvard Medical School and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator

Led the MitoCarta Tree of Life consortium

Pavel Doležal

Cell biologist at Charles University in Prague

Independent commentator on the Giardia findings

Organizations Involved

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Biomedical research institute

Co-led the MitoCarta Tree of Life project

Cambridge-based institute that co-led the consortium mapping mitochondrial proteins across the tree of life.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Nonprofit medical research organization

Funded the project through its Emerging Pathogens Initiative

Major medical research funder whose Emerging Pathogens Initiative bankrolled the consortium.

Cell Press

Scientific publisher

Published the nine atlas papers

Publisher of Cell, Molecular Cell, Current Biology, and the newer Cell Press Blue journals, which carried the atlas papers.

Timeline

2022 October 2026

3 events Latest: Today

October 2026
Nature reports on the atlas
Today Coverage

Nature covers the findings, focusing on drug targets and the reopened question of when mitochondria evolved.
Today
Nine atlas papers published
Publication

Papers in Cell and related journals map mitochondrial proteins in six organisms and reassemble the timeline of organelle evolution.
October 1st, 2026
2022
Consortium forms to map mitochondrial proteins
Project launch

Mootha assembles 25 researchers across seven labs, funded by HHMI's Emerging Pathogens Initiative.
2022

Scenarios

Parasite drug targets enter preclinical development

Possible Resolves by End of 2028

Discussed by: Mootha and colleagues; Broad Institute and HHMI press releases

The researchers call the 33 parasite-only protein families 'ideal drug targets.' A biotech, academic lab, or a public-private group such as the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative could pick one family and start screening compounds. Progress would mean showing the protein is essential for parasite survival and finding a molecule that inhibits it without touching human proteins.

MitoCarta atlas expands beyond eight organisms

Likely Resolves by End of 2028

Discussed by: The consortium's machine-learning predictions of roughly 200 eukaryotes

The team trained an AI model to predict mitoproteomes for about 200 eukaryotes that cannot be studied experimentally. A follow-up phase could experimentally verify some of those predictions and add organisms to the atlas, widening the map across the tree of life and sharpening reconstructions of the last eukaryotic common ancestor.

Phylogenomic studies confirm late mitochondrial acquisition

Uncertain Resolves by End of 2028

Discussed by: Mootha's team versus earlier studies; Nature notes the ongoing debate

The new reconstructions place mitochondrial proteins as arriving later than the nucleus, proteasome, and other core eukaryotic features, on a similar timeline to peroxisomes. If the field accepts this, it would settle a long-running question about how the eukaryotic cell came together. Critics argue the pattern could be an artifact of different evolutionary rates between the host and endosymbiont genomes.

Historical Context

3 moments from history that rhyme with this story — and how they unfolded.

1967

Endosymbiosis theory (1967)

Lynn Margulis published her theory that mitochondria and chloroplasts descend from bacteria engulfed by early cells. The idea was dismissed for years before evidence accumulated in its favor.

Then

The theory faced decades of skepticism.

Now

It became a cornerstone of cell biology, confirmed by the discovery that mitochondria carry their own DNA resembling bacterial genomes.

Why this matters now

Today's debate over when mitochondria were acquired descends directly from that earlier controversy over where they came from.

1990-2003

Human Genome Project completion (2003)

An international consortium spent 13 years and roughly $3 billion sequencing the human genome, producing a reference map of about 20,000 protein-coding genes.

Then

It accelerated gene discovery and diagnostics.

Now

It established the template for consortium science, from precision medicine to large-scale biobanks.

Why this matters now

The MitoCarta atlas is an organelle-scale version of that effort: a systematic catalog built by many labs as a reference for the field.

October 2002

Malaria parasite genome (2002)

Researchers published the genome of Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest malaria parasite. The sequence exposed thousands of parasite proteins with no human counterparts.

Then

It opened systematic screens for drug targets.

Now

It helped drive the search for antimalarials and vaccines, though malaria still kills hundreds of thousands of people yearly.

Why this matters now

The current atlas follows the same logic: pathogen-specific proteins absent in humans are prime candidates for drugs that spare the patient.