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Updated: Aug 8, 2026
Inner Mitochondrial Membrane Sensitivity to Na+ Reveals Partially Segmented Functional CoQ Pools
Published on: July 20, 2022
Testing mitochondrial metabolic competence by cytochrome oxidase preferential cytochemistry versus immunoreactivity
Patrizia Fattoretti1, Marta Balietti, Belinda Giorgetti
1Neurobiology of Aging Laboratory, INRCA Research Department, Ancona, Italy. p.fattoretti@inrca.it
Abstract:
Cytochemically evidenced COX activity was compared with levels of immunohistochemically stained mitochondrial- and nuclear-encoded subunits (CO I and CO IV) in the dentate gyrus outer molecular layer (OML) and cerebellar granular layer (GL) of adult and old rats. COX activity decreased significantly in aging, whereas CO I and CO IV levels were significantly increased both in GL and OML of old animals. These findings suggest that the age-related decay of the mitochondrial metabolic competence is not caused by a reduction of COX subunits levels, but causal events affecting mitochondria as discrete morphofunctional units of the cellular bioenergetic machinery.
