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Mitochondrial function in fibroblasts with aging in culture and/or Alzheimer's disease

Hsueh-Meei Huang1, Corinne Fowler, Hui Xu

  • 1Weill Medical College, Cornell University, Burke Medical Research Institute, 785 Mamaroneck Avenue, White Plains, NY 10605, USA. hhuang@burke.org

Neurobiology of Aging
|February 19, 2005
PubMed

Insights

Mitochondrial membrane potentials (MMP) decrease with cellular aging in fibroblasts. This study found no difference in MMP between Alzheimer's disease patients and controls, suggesting aging, not AD, impacts mitochondrial function in this context.

Area of Science:

  • Cell Biology
  • Mitochondrial Biology
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • Mitochondrial membrane potentials (MMP) are crucial indicators of mitochondrial health and cellular function.
  • Existing methods for MMP measurement have limitations in quantitative accuracy and applicability to living cells under physiological conditions.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To present a novel, quantitative method for estimating relative MMP in mitochondrial-like particles (MLP) within living cells at 37°C.
  • To investigate age-related changes in relative MMP and cellular parameters in fibroblast cell lines from Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and controls.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized a combination of fluorescence microscopy, 3D-deconvolution, and exhaustive photon reassignment (EPR) for quantitative MMP estimation.
  • Analyzed fibroblast cell lines from AD patients with PS-1 mutations and age-matched controls at various culture ages.
  • Assessed relative MMP, cell size, and the sum of relative MMP within individual cells and across cell lines.

Main Results:

  • Observed significant variations in relative MMP, cell size, and total MLP MMP within cells and cell lines.
  • Demonstrated that relative MMP decreased with increasing culture age in fibroblasts.
  • Showed that cell size and the sum of relative MMP per cell increased with culture age.
  • Found no significant differences in relative MMP between AD patient and control groups at any culture age.

Conclusions:

  • The developed method provides a sensitive, quantitative estimate of relative MMP, enabling comparisons across different cellular conditions.
  • Cellular aging in culture is associated with changes in mitochondrial function, specifically a decrease in relative MMP.
  • The study indicates that under non-stressed conditions, relative MMP changes with aging but does not differentiate between controls and AD patients with PS-1 mutations.

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