Molecular machinery of mitochondrial fusion and fission.
March 29th, 2008 | by admin |Molecular machinery of mitochondrial fusion and fission.
Mitochondria generate energy by oxidative phosphorylation, play a crucial role in iron-sulphur cluster assembly, and participate in intermediary metabolism, calcium signalling and apoptosis. They are bounded by a double membrane and contain about 800 (yeast) to 1500 (human) different proteins. While the vast majority of mitochondrial proteins is encoded in the nucleus and post-translationally imported into the organelle, a handful of proteins required for respiration are encoded by the mitochondrial genome. In many eukaryotic cell types mitochondria continuously move along cytoskeletal tracks and frequently fuse and divide. In recent years it became clear that this dynamic behaviour is important for many mitochondrial functions in cell life and death. Here, I will briefly summarize the cellular roles of mitochondrial dynamics and discuss the molecular machinery mediating mitochondrial membrane fusion and fission.
Westermann B.
University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth 95440.