I found this abstract while perusing for references to Barja's work:
http://nar.oupjourna...ract/29/10/2117
Those amounts are significantly smaller than those quoted by Barja and others, who normally give numbers between 1 and 10 oxo8dG/10^5 deoxyguanosine (dG), much larger than 0.032 or 0.015.A major controversy in the area of DNA biochemistry concerns the actual in vivo levels of oxidative damage in DNA. We show here that 8-oxo-2-deoxyguanosine (oxo8dG) generation during DNA isolation is eliminated using the sodium iodide (NaI) isolation method and that the level of oxo8dG in nuclear DNA (nDNA) is almost one-hundredth of the level obtained using the classical phenol method. We found using NaI that the ratio of oxo8dG/10^5 deoxyguanosine (dG) in nDNA isolated from mouse tissues ranged from 0.032 ± 0.002 for liver to 0.015 ± 0.003 for brain.
If the numbers are off by such large amounts, then drawing any conclusions about the relative rates of mtDNA and nuDNA lesions seems extremely impractical. For example, another notable quote from the abstract:
Those ratios are much higher than anything Barja quoted, as far as I can recall.The levels of oxo8dG in mitochondrial DNA isolated from liver, heart and brain were 6-, 16- and 23-fold higher than nDNA from these tissues.
So, where do we go from here? Do we disregard this study, or find fault with its methodology? Comments from those with lab experience? I haven't had a chance to check any papers that reference this study (to refute or support it), so I may be jumping the gun here.