MRPL17 (mitochondrial ribosomal protein L17) is a structural component of the mitochondrial large ribosomal subunit that plays a critical role in mitochondrial translation and oxidative phosphorylation. As a component of the ribonucleoprotein complex within the mitochondrial inner membrane, MRPL17 regulates the synthesis of respiratory chain enzyme complexes, particularly Complex I activity 1. Loss of MRPL17 function impairs mitochondrial respiratory capacity, reducing oxygen consumption and ATP production 1. MRPL17 expression is significantly upregulated in multiple cancers, including non-small cell lung cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma, where elevated levels correlate with advanced disease stages, lymph node metastasis, and poor overall survival 123. Mechanistically, MRPL17 promotes cancer progression through COX8A-dependent mitochondrial function enhancement, enabling increased cellular viability, proliferation, migration, and invasion 1. Beyond malignancy, MRPL17 dysfunction contributes to recurrent spontaneous abortion pathogenesis by compromising decidual stromal cell survival through mitochondrial impairment 4, and genetic evidence associates MRPL17 with sepsis risk through multi-omics analysis 5. These findings establish MRPL17 as a pivotal regulator of mitochondrial bioenergetics with broad disease relevance in cancer progression and inflammatory/infectious pathologies.